Like Knives
by Savae
Summary: [Post-game / Squall-centric / Squall and Rinoa] When does one become greater than the sum of his mistakes? Reeling in the aftermath of all that could have been, Squall Leonhart—a year shy of thirty, weekend father, and disgraced SeeD—delves into a criminal underworld beyond his imagining, where he learns about the deep scars, and the true price of regret.
1. Prologue: Gone

_**Author's Note:** This is my first attempt at writing in a very long time! The story itself takes place eleven years after the events of FFVIII, and is __fairly Squall-centric!_ Rated M for some content throughout the later chapters.

**Like Knives**

* * *

Prologue. Gone

His throat became raw and his breaths laboured at the onset of reality. Everything was wrong; this couldn't be the way it ended. And yet, here he was, trembling with long repressed emotion, all his worst fears coming to light. He wanted to be angry with her, to scream and tell her about how she wronged him, but he knew that doing so would mean giving lease to a lie.

He hurt her. That truth stung like a wasp; sharp, malevolent.

He should have paid more attention, should have been more receptive, should have cared for her more than he did, should have been there when she needed him, should have shown how much he needed her... Should have, should have, should have.

Her bags were packed. This was really happening. Numbly, he leaned his weight into the wall, thoughts assaulting him as he contemplated all the ways he could have prevented this. Some knight in shining armour he was; too wrapped up in his own fucking little world to realize that life as he knew it was unraveling right in front of him.

When he looked up, she was at the door. The small blanketed bundle cradled in her arms moved ever so slightly as she set her gently into her stroller. Despite the deep scars that ran between them, the child remained perfect and innocent.

He walked up to the them and knelt down to meet his daughter. He kissed her on her forehead and whispered so faintly that it might have been only breath.

_"I'm sorry."_

"Seven years, Squall," Rinoa spoke softly as he rose to meet her. Her tone was even and measured, void of any emotion. Her red-rimmed eyes met his. "Seven long fucking years of waiting for you. I can't do this anymore. I can't be the person you want me to be."

He wanted to tell her to give him one last chance, to convince her that he would change, that he could change, that he needed them, that he loved them more than he could even begin to describe, just _please_ don't take Ellie away...

Instead, he did nothing. His expression went blank, listless, void.

He didn't even flinch as the door shut behind them.


	2. Chapter 1: Daughters

1. Daughters

_Four years later... _

He sat at his desk, alone in the dimly lit room. The photographs spread across his workspace stared at him as he carefully studied each one. Sorting through his notes, he began to match the faces to the corresponding intel he had gathered. He pushed up his glasses, not wanting to lose his focus in any way, shape, or form. His ability to be analytical and precise had become his trademark over the last decade, and this assignment was no different.

Facts and speculations, suspects and victims, all of it was scattered into a thousand pieces; a puzzle waiting to be built. There was a common string in the case: the fourteen victims. Each one, a young woman between twenty and thirty, nude, arms and legs bound, with an "x" carved in between their breasts. The cause of death was always asphyxiation.

It was grotesque, even for someone as desensitized as himself, to see a stolen life become someone else's trophy. As the body count grew, he became only more repelled by the waste.

He got up and poured himself another coffee. At this point, caffeine was the only thing that kept him from falling flat on his face. Sleep was a luxury not easily afforded to Squall Leonhart. He took a sip as he walked over to his window, tired eyes surveying the view.

The rain glassed over the streets of Deling, city lights erupting vividly as their reflections tried to outshine them from the pavement. Drops kissed his window and created a beautiful obstruction to compliment the outside world. It was 03:00, and the city was graced with a beautiful quiet. Deling, he decided, suited him much better than Balamb ever did. Here, he was just another face in a crowd of millions. He could never have imagined the level of satisfaction complete anonymity granted him. To take a walk outside and not have to worry about being called back to the confines of an office; to go all day without a single disturbance...

It was almost perfect.

Almost.

He cracked the window slightly and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Gingerly, he lit one and inhaled deeply. He felt himself ease, mind worn from working on his investigation for the better part of thirty hours. Smoke tangled with the air in front of him and for a moment, Squall found himself blissfully entranced. It seemed as though he was noticing all the little things a lot more lately.

The case itself was full of small details; at times, it was hard to deduce the significant from the irrelevant. Still, when SeeD's Intelligence Division assigned Squall as one of the lead investigators on the case, he tackled it with a passion he had not felt since the days of Ultimecia. Having a daughter of his own made him all the more compelled to find out who was robbing these women of their lives and their dignity.

He shuddered when he tried to imagine the person behind the atrocities. The difficult part about finding a psychopath was that they were able to blend in extremely well with the rest of society. It was a big part of what made them so elusive. They could be friends, neighbours, co-workers, church-goers, family people... The ravenous serial killings were just a piece of a very long and very complicated equation.

He finished his cigarette and smashed the butt into a makeshift ashtray. The pause was just enough for him to collect himself, to find his sense of clarity even as his body cried to go to bed. Coffee still in hand, he made his way back to his desk where he was almost certain he was going to spend the rest of his night.

* * *

"One more time! Please!"

"You've had three turns already."

"This will be the last one! I PROMISE!"

With that, he grabbed the rung of the merry-go-round and began to run, much to the delight of its gleeful passenger. The cool autumn air surrounded him as he spun her faster and faster, streaming across his face and tunneling into his lungs. Her laughter resounded in his ears, echoing like a song that never got old. She was bubbly and full of life just like her mother, and for that he was infinitely grateful.

He never wanted her to be like him.

The merry-go-round slowed to a halt and she jumped off awkwardly, and he watched as the onset of dizziness took control of her movements. Her little legs grew wobbly as she tried to adjust to walking with a spinning head. Squall quickly scooped her up and set her on his shoulders to prevent her from toppling to the ground. She giggled, putting her hands over his eyes in a feeble attempt to obstruct his view.

"Ah! Stop it, Ellie! You're gonna get my glasses all smudged up!" he cried out, pulling her hands away from his face. His eyesight was not what it was when he was a teenager, but it was just a small thread in a tapestry of changes he'd experienced since then. He was less than a year shy of thirty, but somehow, seventeen felt like over a lifetime ago.

"Dad, I'm hungry! Can we please get something to eat?" As she said the words, his paternal intuition kicked in, warning that she wanted some sugar-loaded treat from the playground concession stand. If he were like her mother, there would be no second thought to the little girl's request, but Squall was a far and distant cry from Rinoa Heartilly.

"We haven't had dinner, yet, Ellie. We're not stopping for junk," he told her. "Let's go get you something half-decent, alright?"

"But the store is right there!" she declared, pointing toward the concession with her tiny outstretched hand.

"Your bargaining skills are just as bad as your mother's." Squall made his way back to his car, Ellie sulking on his shoulders. She might not have been happy about his decision, but he wasn't going to bend to the will of the little girl every time she asked him to.

He set her in the back seat and buckled her into her car chair. Hopping into the driver's seat, he put the keys into the ignition and felt the engine respond. Music filled the cab; a hauntingly distant piano piece that he had fallen in love with years ago, the notes tumbled with a bittersweet grace that he couldn't quite identify. He was half-anticipating for Ellie to start complaining about the song, tell him that it was boring, that it didn't have the right beat. But he, himself, did not have an appreciation for music until his mid-twenties, and he certainly didn't expect her to have one at age four.

"...Daddy, can you turn it up?"

A small smile curled its way onto his lips.

* * *

Something about being a weekend father wrenched knots into Squall's stomach. Ellie meant the world to him, but he wasn't sure she'd ever know it, and that hurt far worse than any battle wound ever would.

Her house was a small, narrow building in the Galbadia Heights suburb of Deling. It was a typical middle-class neighbourhood—low crime rate, parks and schools nearby, close to public transit...and on the opposite side of city from Caraway's mansion. He walked Ellie up the stairs to the doorway and let her ring the doorbell. From inside, he could hear the sound of footsteps as they made their way to the landing.

"Mommy!" Ellie yelled, moving to wrap her arms around Rinoa's legs the moment the door opened.

"Hello, Ellie. Hi Squall."

Rinoa looked up at her former lover and smiled softly. Although age had changed her—a few crow's feet gracing her eyes, a bit of extra weight around her waist—he was still entranced by her beauty. He saw artistry in her lines, the honesty in her features. If only the circumstances could have been different... If only he hadn't forfeit the opportunity to be her knight.

"So, how was she?" she asked, absently combing her hand through Ellie's unruly chestnut hair.

"Good, as usual. A little difficult with dinner tonight, but we got through it," Squall said as he handed her Ellie's backpack.

"Well, kids will be kids."

Squall tried his best to keep a grimace from crossing his face. He hated it when she said that—it was just a poor excuse to refrain from having to be a parent. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. _Just let it slide..._

He knelt down to Ellie's level with his arms outstretched. She eagerly ran back to him and let herself get wrapped up in her father's embrace. Her little hands squeezed his shoulders tightly, soft skin against the worn leather of his jacket. Squall had never been one for open affection, but ever since Ellie was born, he found himself breaking all his own rules.

"Love you, Daddy," she said into his ear. He pulled her closer and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"Love you, too."

* * *

His phone vibrated on the wooden surface of his nightstand, cutting his long overdue sleep short. Groggily, he threw an arm out and reached for the vibrating nuisance. His eyes were immediately assaulted by the bright light being emitted by the phone as he struggled to make out who was at the other end of the call. The blurry letters in front of him wouldn't co-operate without his glasses, but he already had a fairly good idea of who it would be.

"Hello?" he answered, trying to mask the tiredness in his voice.

_"Squall, it's Quistis. There's been another. Come to the 1900 block of 57th Avenue as soon as possible."_

"Alright, I'll be there."

Squall groaned inwardly and closed his eyes for a moment. The will to leave the warmth and comfort of his bed was not easily unearthed, weary body engrossed in the comfort of his cocoon. He squinted at the digital clock across the room, barely able to make out the red glowing numbers.

04:17. _Fuck._

He tried to banish the intoxicating memory of sleep from his mind as he got up and retrieved his clothing from the floor beside his bed. He pulled on his black t-shirt, grey jeans, and socks that he had worn the previous day. Grabbing his glasses from the nightstand, he made his way to the bathroom and took a good look at himself in the mirror.

Dark circles framed his tired, pale eyes, and his facial hair had come in well past the five o'clock shadow mark. His hair sat in a disheveled mess atop his head, a result of much tossing and turning throughout the night. Pulling his fingers through his disaster of a mane, he attempted to make himself a little more presentable.

His half-sleeve tattoo was peeking out from underneath his t-shirt. He had gotten a stylized version of Griever inked on his right arm when he turned twenty as a birthday present to himself. He quite liked the artwork, but Quistis—as well as several other upper-level SeeDs—reprimanded him for getting it, telling him it wouldn't be well-received by the delegates his career had forced him to face, that they might become offended and question his professionalism.

He retreated back into his bedroom to grab his wallet, keys, and ever-insistent cell phone. The prospect of the damned thing ringing again was enough to make him hurry. Hastily, he made his way to the foyer, put on his boots and jacket, and stepped out into the cold, rain-stricken November night.

As he drove down the streets of Deling, wipers on full blast, his mindset transitioned from tired dad to full-on SeeD commander. He cursed the rain and its detrimental effects on the crime scene; it was going to wash away key evidence and make it difficult to conduct a thorough investigation.

The 1900 block of 57th Avenue was deep in the city slums, where vagrants and addicts and prostitutes were a common feature on every corner. Only a few streets away was the red light district; it was a degrading place where women sold their bodies in a vain attempt to make up for their failures. Women who were promised careers in film and art and dance, women who got stuck in the revolving door of human trafficking.

The moment he turned down onto 57th Avenue, he could see the scene just a few blocks away. Police lights flashed wildly and the area was cordoned off with yellow tape. He parked his car and stepped out, just in time for Quistis to greet him with a coffee.

"Thanks." He lit a cigarette and took the coffee. "So, what do we have here?"

"A Jane Doe, twenty to twenty-five-years-old, same modus operandi as far as I can tell," Quistis replied. "She was dumped in the alleyway between the convenience store and the Boko's Chicken. The medical examiner came in and said that she would have to run an autopsy to determine the cause of death, but I'm almost certain that it's going to be the same as all the other girls. We've canvassed the area, but so far no one has come forward with any information."

Squall nodded. He often wondered why Quistis had chosen to take this assignment with him. She was too competent, too effective a SeeD; she could've had any job she wanted and this investigation sat at the bottom of a long list of open contracts.

Squall quickly finished his cigarette took a last sip of his coffee before walking onto the scene. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves, as so to limit his own contamination. Down in the back alley, he could see a pale white body spread out on the ground, nude skin in stark contrast from the garbage and pavement surrounding her. He walked up to her for closer examination. The woman's lips were blue and chapped, eyes withdrawn. A shallow "x" was carved between her breasts, appearing almost identical to all the other victims.

"Do we have a time of death?" he asked.

"The medical examiner said she hasn't reached full rigor yet, so she likely died anywhere between four to ten hours ago," Quistis told him. "We've taken her prints, so hopefully we can identify her and track down who heard from her last."

"Alright," he said. "It'd be nice if we could find the actual fucking crime scene and not just the dumping grounds for once."

"Wishful thinking, Squall. We just have to keep at it."

"Yeah...right." The rain had matted his hair down, and the cold wet air was piercing right into his bones. He pushed his bangs out of the way and knelt down beside the victim. She looked so gaunt and listless; whoever did this to her probably didn't have to put up too much of a fight. He took her hands, bound together with rough twine, into his own. Though stiff, he was able to move them closer so that he could get a better look. She was wearing light pink nail polish, although much of it had appeared to be chipped off. Upon closer inspection of the woman's nails, he noticed something.

Blood.

"Quistis, get over here! Take a look at this." A small drop had congealed under her right index fingernail. Squall had a feeling that the blood did not belong to her. "I wonder if this is from our killer. Maybe she scratched him as she was trying to defend herself."

"It's possible," Quistis said. She turned to the CSU photographer and technician. "You guys, come here. We need to get a photo of this and a sample before the rain washes it away!"

The two SeeDs moved out of the way and allowed the local CSU officers do their job. Quistis looked at her former student and noticed that something was off. Maybe it was the fact that his jaw was clenched a little tighter than usual, or that his eyebrows had furrowed together beyond his regular brooding demeanor. She offered him a hand on the small of his back, a small gesture to let him know that she was there. He flinched at the contact, surprised, and turned his eyes to meet hers. She quickly withdrew the hand in question and cleared her throat, trying to cover her own embarrassment.

"Sorry, uh, it's just that...well, you just seem more tense than usual," she explained. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," he replied, shrugging his shoulders and heaving out a sigh. "I guess this case is just getting to me. This woman isn't just a victim. She's someone's daughter. Each one of these women is someone's daughter. I mean, I don't know what I'd do if something like this ever happened to Ellie."

"We'll get to the bottom of it. It's only a matter of time."

"I hope you're right."


	3. Chapter 2: Passenger

_****__**Author's Note:** __I hope there are people out there who are enjoying my story so far! I'm certainly enjoying writing it. I know my fics don't exactly have the most lighthearted tone to them, but I guess that's just not my style. Also, if you are wondering about the fragments and run-ons, the reason I use them is to kind of track the story on the same level as Squall's train of thought. Part of that limited omniscient mumbo-jumbo._

* * *

2. Passenger

The Deling City Police Headquarters was abuzz with good mornings and mindless chatter about the weekend, who did what, who went where, the trivialities of life. Squall couldn't understand how other people could just stand there and talk about themselves so openly, and so _highly_, as if their words made them holier than thou. He didn't care for banter, opting to keep his head down in an attempt to avoid another unwanted conversation.

He made his way into the boardroom, which had been set up as a makeshift SeeD command centre for Quistis and himself. The sun had risen by now, light rays pouring into the room through half-open blinds. Against the back wall was a board covered in pictures and notes. Photographs of the victims, both when they were alive as well as post-mortem, persons of interest, next of kin... Every who, what, where, and when that they could find was on that board, laid out in sequential order, but still less than complete.

The question that mattered the most was still missing: _why_.

Squall made his way to the coffee maker and prepared a pot to help him get through the long day ahead. The machine gargled to life with the push of a button, and he semi-patiently awaited his third cup of the morning. He was at the point where he knew that if he didn't have at least one coffee every day, he would go through a lovely caffeine withdrawal, complimented by a massive migraine and less than ideal mood.

The door swung open and Quistis entered, carrying a manila folder. She seemed to have a bit of extra drive behind her step, an indication that she was onto something good...or at least, something better than nothing.

"Our Jane Doe is no longer a Jane Doe," she said and threw down a photo down in front of him. The glassiness was gone from the woman's eyes, her lips pink and full. Alive. "She is Leigh Ellsway, twenty-three, from Dollet. She came to Deling to attend the University of Galbadia and finish her Bachelor of Arts degree. Cause of death was asphyxiation, sometime around 22:00 last night."

"She was in the system?" he asked as he poured a coffee for himself and his partner.

"Yeah, she had a misdemeanor drug charge two years ago. Nothing really beyond that, though."

"Who is the next of kin?"

"Her mother, Meredith Ellsway. The victim doesn't have any kids of her own, and her father died in the Second Sorceress War. She doesn't have any siblings, either."

Squall feel his stomach turn over at the thought of having to tell that woman that her daughter had died. And not only that she died, but that she died in one of the worst ways possible. Murdered. Put on public display. A lifeless trophy.

"I hate doing these notifications," he muttered.

"I know," Quistis agreed. "It's the only part of this job that doesn't get easier with practice."

Squall picked up the photograph and observed it closely. Leigh was a very pretty woman, he wouldn't say _beautiful_, but definitely pretty. It was saddening to see such a waste of potential, someone who may have had a few hiccups, but all-in-all seemed to have her life on track.

That was the thing about the victims in this case; they weren't living the vagrant lifestyle. They were women with ambition, women with dreams and goals and the conviction to make things happen for themselves. Women with families. Women who meant the world to someone. Women whose lives were actually worth something.

And yet, this case—this mission—was so small compared to all the other missions he had been on. In the grand scheme of his career, it was a minor blip, but for some reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something ominous to it, something the photos and notes weren't telling him. Maybe it was his ego wanting this to be more than it was, to make himself feel like he was doing something important and worthwhile.

The reality was that Squall had become a commander in title, but not in practice. Moving to Deling three years ago sent his career spinning sideways; not to mention all the events leading up to that point. It didn't matter though. Being close to Ellie meant so much more to him than anything else, including SeeD and Garden.

Maybe it was empathy, or maybe something sentimental, but Cid did not—would not—dismiss him from his post, even when that dismissal was not only requested, but well deserved. Whatever the Headmaster was thinking, Squall ultimately didn't question it.

* * *

_"Sir, may I have a moment?"_

_Cid looked up to see the young man standing in doorway of his office. He already knew what this was about; Commander Leonhart had not been at his best as of late, and the criticisms were starting to mount against him. While Cid personally never gave up his faith in Squall's competence, he knew that at some point in time, things were going to have to change._

_"Please, Squall, have a seat," Cid said, motioning to the chair in front of his mahogany desk._

_"Thanks."_

_For a moment, they just sat and stared at each other. This boy, one that he thought of as his own, had at some point grown up. He was no longer a young and apathetic loner, but rather a man at odds with himself. The values and priorities that Garden had taught him to embody were no longer a reflection of what he truly believed._

_"Sir, I want to resign." Squall blurted out the words before he could give it a second thought._

_"I know you do."_

_More silence. Squall shifted uncomfortably in his chair. What did Cid mean he knew? Was he really being that obvious? A small smirk appeared on the Headmaster's face, not one of amusement, but something else... A plan. A scheme._

_"What is your reasoning behind your request?" Cid asked, his voice oddly cold and official. _

_"...I've spent almost a full year away from my daughter. At this rate, I'm going to be a worse father than my own," Squall stated plainly. "I don't want to go down that road... I won't go down that road. I can't do that to her."_

_Cid's smirk turned into a laugh, but Squall couldn't find the humour in the situation. It was like the older man wasn't taking him seriously, like this was some sort of joke to him. This wasn't supposed to be funny._

_"Sir, I—"_

_"My boy, do you know what kind of message the sudden resignation of a top Garden Commander would send to the world?" The question wasn't really a question; Cid clearly knew the answer. "It would say that we are unstable and that we cannot take care of our own. That message would be detrimental to the image SeeD has spent years perfecting. We are a strong and capable force, but more importantly, we are a UNIFIED force."_

_Squall felt his jaw clench. Was he really hearing this? If anyone was telling a joke, it had to be the Headmaster. He didn't want this to be his fate; to be a passenger in his own life until he got someone else's permission to take the wheel. Didn't Cid realize that his life held greater meaning now, a purpose beyond the walls of Balamb Garden? Didn't he realize that he had a family that actually mattered to him? And didn't he realize that there were at least a dozen other SeeDs who were more than qualified—and willing—to take his place? All these questions piled up on his tongue, threatening to escape._

_But his voice betrayed him._

_"Now Squall, I know what you've been up to lately, and I have to say, I am not impressed," Cid said, observing him as he squirmed slightly at the words. The subtle shift in body language confirmed the Headmaster's suspicions, giving real substance to all the rumours surrounding the younger man. "Don't think for a second that I haven't heard about THAT, Squall. I may not know the whole story, but I know enough."_

_Squall chewed on the inside of his cheek. How the Headmaster found out, he wasn't sure. He wasn't exactly proud of it, himself, but he'd had a moment of weakness, and at the time, it was amazing—beautiful, even. It was something he couldn't explain to Cid._

_"It was stupid of me, Sir. I know that." He didn't know what else to say._

_"Everyone makes mistakes. Hyne knows I've made many," Cid told him. "Having said that, I understand where you are coming from. I know that being so far away from Ellie has been extremely difficult for you."_

_Squall just listened. He wasn't exactly sure what the Headmaster was getting at._

_"Squall, remember when I said that I didn't want you to become a machine? I meant that," Cid told him. "You might not believe me right now, but I'm looking out for your best interests. That is why I am placing you on temporary leave pending reassignment."_

_"'Pending reassignment'?" Squall's eyebrows furrowed together. "What exactly does that entail?"_

_"Take the hint, son. A bright boy such as yourself should know how to read between the lines by now." Cid leaned back into his chair and offered Squall a wide smile. "Just keep your bags packed."_

* * *

The drive to Dollet, although only three hours in length, felt like an eternity. The whole time, Squall tried to play out the scene in his head, what they were going to say, how they were going to say it, what they were going to do when Meredith Ellsway heard that her daughter was dead. Before this assignment, he had only ever written letters to the parents of fallen SeeDs, which was more of a copy and paste endeavour than anything personal. _We regretfully inform you that SeeD A has lost their life honourably in battle on this month at this time..._ He had a newfound respect for those who actually had to go out and do these notifications. Quistis was right; it never did get easier with practice.

Meredith Ellsway's home was a quaint brick house with classic curb appeal, located on the outskirts of the city. The dwelling was modest, with a large maple tree in the front yard. Golden leaves were scattered about, rake leaning against the side of the building waiting to be put to use.

The two SeeDs walked through the front gate and up to the entrance, a red door with a large white frame, peephole a little shorter than usual. Quistis gave one glance at Squall before knocking, her quick pattern distinct to his ears—one, one-two-three.

A brief moment passed before Meredith opened the door, greeting them with a warm smile. She was slender, mid-forties, short auburn hair laced with silver... Beautiful. More beautiful than her daughter, Squall thought, despite her age. Her voice was soft and inviting, the voice of a mother. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Meredith Ellsway? My name is Quistis Trepe from SeeD's Intelligence Division. This is my partner, Squall Leonhart. I spoke with you on the phone earlier."

"Oh yes, of course. Please, come in." Meredith took a step back and let the SeeDs inside.

The interior carried a lot of the old-fashioned charm that surrounded the outside of her house: old, creaky hardwood floors; pale green damask wallpaper; photos encased in vintage frames gracing the walls. Some would say the home looked dated and possibly dilapidated, but Squall liked the character of it all.

She sat the two of them in the living area and turned off her television before taking a seat in a red velvet armchair across from them. "What can I do for you? It's not every day that one has SeeD visiting their house."

Quistis cleared her throat before beginning. "Mrs. Ellsway, I'm sorry to say that it isn't good news that brings us here today."

Meredith's hazel eyes widened at the words.

"I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, but last night at 03:46, your daughter, Leigh Ellsway was found dead on the 1900 block of 57th Avenue in Deling City. We believe she was murdered," Quistis said, her voice coated in sympathy. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Meredith blinked once, twice, shell-shocked. Her head bowed and she began to shudder, sobs coming out only as violent breath. She brought her hands to her face, as if to hold herself together, but it didn't work, and she broke down and started sobbing uncontrollably.

Squall's heart sank at the sight of the woman in front of him, a widow robbed of her only child. Tentatively, he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, hoping that the contact would comfort her somehow. Meredith leaned forward and grabbed onto him, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso as she continued to cry and call out to Hyne and ask why. Squall didn't believe in Hyne, but he wasn't about to take that away from her. He patted her back, hoping to calm her down, even if it was just momentarily; he didn't want to let on that he was extremely uncomfortable having her cling on to him the way she was.

"I know it's hard, but we need you to answer a few questions for us, if you can," Squall told her gently. "Our number one priority is finding out who did this to Leigh and apprehending them."

Meredith nodded and pulled herself together enough to sit back in her chair. She had turned a couple shades paler and her mascara left black rivers running down her cheeks. She choked and sniffed and wiped her eyes as she regained a fragile state of composure.

"When was the last time you heard from Leigh?" Squall pulled his notebook out of his pocket and got straight to the point.

"Last night, she phoned me at 18:30," she replied, her voice husky and raw.

"Did she tell you anything about what she planned to do later that night?"

Meredith thought for a moment. "Yes, she said she had just finished dinner and was about to meet up with a group of friends from her university. They were going to get together at one of their houses."

Squall quickly jotted down her answers before moving on to the next question. "Alright, and did she say exactly whose house she was going to be at?"

"No... No, I'm not familiar with any of her friends from Deling. She keeps her life there fairly separate from here... I don't know why; probably because I'm her mom and she doesn't want me cramping her style. You know how kids can be."

That was not the answer he was hoping for.

"But, there is one person that she told me about."

Squall perked up. "Go on."

"His name is James," Meredith said, nodding slightly as she spoke. "I think she might have been interested in him. They went on a couple dates together... I mean, it's nothing out of the ordinary, but it's all I know."

"Does James have a last name?"

"I don't know it."

"Leigh's file says that she had a drug charge two years ago," Squall said. "Can you tell me more about that?"

Meredith rolled her tear-stained eyes and huffed. "She had a quarter of an ounce of pot and got caught with it at a road block."

"So, you would say that her involvement with drugs was just your the typical college recreational use?"

"Yes, if I had to guess, I'd say that is about the size of it."

"Alright."

The rest of the questioning turned up very little, and was largely redundant. Meredith mused about her daughter, talking about her in present tense as if she was going to come home, alive and well. She was wrapped up in an illusion, hoping that reality was the dream.

Squall thought her sentiments would make a nice eulogy.

Their interview with Meredith Ellsway concluded according to the book. They gave her business cards with their cell phone numbers, told her to call them if she found out anything, offered their condolences... It felt plastic.

The ride back to Deling was quiet. Squall sat in the passenger seat of Quistis' car and listened to the hum of the tires as they rolled against the pavement. He hated the idea of leaving the woman there by herself to cope with such a massive loss. As a teenager, he would have not thought twice about it; he might have even reprimanded her for allowing herself to grow so attached to other people.

But he wasn't that cynical child anymore.


	4. Chapter 3: Masks

_****__**Author's Note:** _So, I guess I should clear a few things up about my own perception of the game, in case any of you are wondering about where I am deriving my timeline from. This story starts _in mid-November, _eleven years and three months after the game ends. This makes the characters' ages the following (at story start): _  
Quistis: 30; Seifer: 29, turning 30; _Squall, Selphie: 29; Irvine: 2_8, turning 29; Rinoa, Zell: 28_  


_I figured it out like this... FFVIII begins in March (because your first Weapon's Monthly issue is the March issue), but it also begins in the springtime (because Squall's study panel says that the SeeD exam follows the Spring Memorial Service), meaning that it takes place sometime after the 20th. If we're going by Weapon's Monthly for timeline, the last one you pick up is the August Issue, so the game ended in August, likely just before Squall turned 18.  
_

_Also, with regards to Deling City and Dollet being a day-trip away from each other... In the FFVIII Ultimania, it says you can see the western continent from Balamb, so the planet must be relatively smaller than Earth. Also, I just can't believe that Squall could cross the Horizon Bridge with Rinoa on his back IF their world was as big as ours.  
_

_...And now you know that I put waaaaay too much thought into this game over the past 13 years. Anyways, read on, friends!  
_

* * *

3. Masks

_"The Galbadian Provisional Government will be hosting a summit in two weeks' time to discuss Galbadia's transition back to a working democracy. This move has been nine years in the making, since the end of the civil uprisings following the Second Sorceress War. _

_"The meeting will include delegates from around the world, including Balamb Garden's Headmaster Cid Kramer, the acting leader of the Independence Council of Timber Gavin Robinson, and the Estharian President Laguna Loire._

_"Critics believe that Galbadia should not involve the international community in the affairs of its own nation-building, and that the policies of outsiders will have too much of an influence on Galbadia's drafting of its revised constitution." _

Squall ate his breakfast while he watched the news anchor describe a world he was no longer a part of. The bureaucracy of a post-wartime world had worn greatly on his mind and aged him before he even had a chance to experience his youth. Still, he couldn't help but watch from a distance; as much as he wanted to reject it all, it was still a part of him. It laid the foundation for the man he was to become.

Since the Second Sorceress War, the world had evolved greatly. Galbadia, with its government in ruin, lay confused in the aftermath. Civil war had broken out for a brief time as factions fought for control of the leaderless land. SeeD had quickly intervened in the matter, however, its role altered too, from militant mercenary force to international peacekeeper.

The uprisings in Galbadia had been a key factor in Timber's strides toward independence. Though the occupied state was still not fully recognized as its own nation, the chaos had given members of all the various resistance factions time to form a coalition and create the Independence Council of Timber. The true challenge ahead of them was the shift into full autonomy, and whether or not they could do it without succumbing to corruption.

Esthar, now standing as the only superpower, had broken its seventeen-year-long silence to play a more diplomatic part in the politics of the world. It was during this time that Squall realized why Laguna Loire was so incredibly popular among the people; despite his bumbling exterior, the man had a way with his politics and seemed like a complete natural on the global stage.

Garden had re-evaluated its stance in a post-sorceress world. The establishment had started to deploy cadets and SeeDs on fewer military operations and more peacekeeping missions. The SeeD Intelligence Division was founded five years ago, training students to become proficient with intel gathering, covert operations, espionage activities, counter-terrorism, and major criminal investigations. These changes played a large role in helping Garden continue to be fiscally sustainable, and finance the reconstruction of Trabia Garden and the re-opening of Galbadia Garden.

As for the six of them, the six who travelled across the threshold of time itself, their stories did not blow them up into fame, but rather into the whispers of legends and rumours. Only a select few were made aware of the details surrounding their achievements, a mission which remained shrouded in secrecy to the world at large. A vague overview of the matter was made public, but nothing more. Squall's worst fear was that the world would discover that Rinoa had become a sorceress and give lease to a new reign of terror. He did not believe Rinoa to be cut from the same cloth as Adel and Ultimecia, but it wasn't Rinoa herself that he was worried about. It was the religious extremists, the self-declared martyrs of Hyne, corrupt politicians hungry for her power...

Squall wondered how his ex-lover dealt with keeping such a big part of herself a secret. He wondered if he would have the strength to do the same, if he were in her position.

_Don't kid yourself._

* * *

Squall picked Quistis up from the police headquarters parking lot. In the morning light, he could see the exhaustion clearly written across her face. He figured she must have spent the whole night there following their questioning of Meredith. Years of working with her told him that once Quistis Trepe got started on something, she did not stop.

Despite her fatigue, she still managed to look well put-together. Her pants were pressed, her hair pinned in place, makeup still picture perfect. A stranger would never know that she spent all hours of darkness tracking the steps of an elusive killer. She always had an amazing ability to maintain a sense of poise no matter how she felt inside; it was her mask, and he was not one to try and remove it. If anyone could appreciate masks, it was him. He had worn one for much of his life, and though he had taken it off in recent years, he could never bring himself to discard it completely.

She plopped herself into the passenger seat with a dull thud, followed by a long, low sigh. "I've tracked down one of the people that Leigh was out with the other night. Her name is Nima York. We need to go to the university residence to meet her."

"Good morning to you, too," Squall said coyly.

"Good morning." Her voice was sharp and borderline sarcastic.

Squall couldn't help but elicit a small grin at her expense. She shook her head in response, a silent way of telling him that she wasn't in the mood. He let her temper roll off him like rain rolling off glass, too wrapped up in the gentle embrace of morning to be bothered it. He started driving toward the university, which stood proudly atop the city's western hillside. The institution itself was home to some of Galbadia's brightest; future scientists and artists and lawyers and teachers and entrepreneurs and policy makers. It was nothing like Garden.

Deling was slowly picking up to its usual hustle and bustle pace as the workday commenced. It was Tuesday, not quite as disappointing as Monday, but not as fast either, and certainly not as relieving as Wednesday. Squall found it amusing that people could give personas to the days of the week; he supposed that the characteristics were a reflection of their creators. To him, all the weekdays felt relatively the same; it was only on weekends that he felt any real elation, the days that he spent with Ellie.

He made his way through the traffic, listening to nothing but the sounds of droning Tuesday and the hum of his car's engine as he shifted through the gears. His car sported a standard transmission; a bit of a rarity considering its dwindling popularity. He remembered the day he bought it, and how the salesman had informed him that modern automatic vehicles could shift much faster than he could, but the man was missing the point. It wasn't about the practicality, it was about the enjoyment he got from changing gears himself and feeling in tune with his vehicle. It was the same reason he had chosen the gunblade as his weapon of choice all those years ago; it wasn't about ease or efficiency, it was about mastering something and feeling a great sense of satisfaction from doing so.

They arrived at the university before long, the sprawling campus littered with students making their way to the first class of the day. Once they reached the dormitory building, Quistis didn't even wait for Squall to park before she had the door partially open. Her impatience was ruling her actions, and Squall hoped that her sour demeanor would subside before they conducted the interview. As she stepped out, she was immediately swept up by a gusting wind that wasn't prevalent down in the lower lying areas of the city. He got out behind her, thankful that he had opted to wear his SeeD issue peacoat in the frigid gale.

They entered the dormitory facility and made their way to the reception. A woman sat rigidly behind the desk and eyed them coolly as they approached. Squall could see that she was roughly the same age as the students, and wondered if her facade was intended to hide the fact that she was a receptionist and not someone with the talent to pursue something greater.

He addressed the girl in a voice that carried an air of professionalism, one that he'd adopted years ago for bureaucrats and government officials. "Hello, my name is Squall Leonhart and this is Quistis Trepe. We're from SeeD. We've come to question one of the students, Nima York."

The girl pulled together a forced smile and spoke in a calm, almost condescending manner. "I'm sorry, sir, but our residence has a strict policy about visitors. We are not able to just let people in and out."

Quistis rolled her eyes and came back at her with a quick retort. "We are here to investigate a _serious_ crime and we need to interview this student. Please don't intervene with us."

The receptionist did not so much as flinch as Quistis spat the words at her, instead maintaining her frustratingly smug smile. "I _truly _am sorry miss...what was your name again?"

"Trepe."

"Miss Trepe. I am sure you can appreciate the nature of why I cannot allow you through." Her eyes became catlike as she spoke. "Security and all."

While Quistis seethed, Squall observed the girl, particularly noticing how much she revelled in the small amount of power she held over them. He thought she would make a good politician, or maybe even a fast-food restaurant manager, if she tried hard enough. Carefully, he planned out his words before he attempted a new tactic.

"Please don't mind my partner," he glanced at her nametag, "Jessica, but you see, this case is extremely important." He leaned onto the desk and looked her deep in the eyes. Women—especially younger women—tended to find him attractive, at least physically, and he decided to try and use it to his advantage. He curled his lips into a half smile and continued, his voice warm and inviting. "We are trying to find justice for one of the young women who attended this school. This girl was robbed of her life, and I doubt she was any older than yourself. We need to speak with her friend so we can get to the bottom of this whole mess and take a killer off the streets." He gave her his best pleading look and saw her react slightly. "Please, Jessica, can you help us?"

The girl, although hesitant, ultimately succumbed to his false charms, just as he'd hoped. She grabbed a keycard from a small box on her desk and handed it to him, trying to look inconspicuous as she did so. "This is the key to the elevator. I can't give you access to Miss York's dorm. You'll have to be let in."

"Thank you, Jessica," Squall said before turning and heading for the elevator. Quistis followed behind him, and as soon as the elevator doors shut, her mouth was open.

"What a BITCH!" She dropped her mask, allowing the full force of her frustration and tiredness to surface. "How the hell you managed that, I'll never know."

"She was easy," he replied. "Headstrong on the outside, maybe, but inside, she's just an insecure little girl."

"Well, let's just hope our victim's friend is a little more cooperative." She hit the button marked "3" and instantly felt the lift come to life. When the elevator opened again, they revealed a long corridor of doors. She led him to the one marked "356" and knocked in her usual fashion.

The entranceway swung open to reveal a short, slightly overweight young woman standing before them. Nima York wore a tired look, tear-swollen eyes carrying the full weight of her grief. She had very obviously abstained from bothering to make herself look presentable, her tangled hair haphazardly pulled back into a ponytail, sweatpants and baggy old t-shirt gracing her round frame. Squall felt a small pang of guilt when the only word that came to mind was _frumpy_. He knew he should've been more sympathetic, his shallow thoughts coming more as a surprise than anything.

"Nima York?" Quistis asked. The woman nodded in confirmation. "Quistis Trepe and Squall Leonhart. We're from SeeD. We've come to ask you a few questions about Leigh Ellsway."

Wordlessly, Nima stood aside and let them in. Squall took in the small dorm; it looked a lot like the one he used to live in back in Garden, before he made SeeD. There was a common kitchenette area with a shared bathroom off to the side. He noticed a photograph of Nima and Leigh stuck to the refrigerator, their radiant smiles telling of happier times.

As they sat down at the dining table, Squall took the chance to steal a look at Quistis, quietly begging her to remain focussed, and keep a cool head. It wasn't often that he needed to remind her of such seemingly basic things, but he could understand that two full days without sleep could put anyone on edge. It wasn't until last night that he had finally allowed himself to succumb to the temptations of his bed and get a solid five hours.

"This is my fault, you know." The silence was broken by Nima's bold statement, hanging in the air like a guillotine, waiting to come down.

"What do you mean?" Squall didn't feel the air of a suspect surrounding this woman, in all her frumpiness and misery. She was too...slow, too casual to even care to pull off something as elaborate as a murder, especially one as ill-natured and sadistic as Leigh's.

"...I...I let her go. I let her go alone. I should have told her to stay with us, but I didn't." Nima let the words flow out of her mouth and Squall could tell that she had been letting them build up inside of her from the moment she had heard the news about Leigh's fate. The dam was broken now, and she carried on, spilling her entire story onto their ears. "We were leaving the residence together to go visit some friends at one of their houses. We had almost made it to my car when her mobile rang and she said she had to go. When I asked her where, she said that a friend needed her help. I asked her if she wanted a ride to wherever her other friend was and she refused... Said she was gonna walk... Fuck, I am so STUPID!"

Squall had pulled his notebook out of his pocket and was scrambling to write everything down. Nima was near hysterical, her remorse and self-blame conquering her every word. He knew the feeling all too well; he had felt the same way when Rinoa fell into a coma after becoming a sorceress. All of the would-haves, could-haves, and should-haves came flooding over like a tsunami, impossible to stop, and devastating everything in its wake.

"Miss York, do you know who she was going to meet?" Quistis asked. The venom had recessed from her voice slightly, training coming back and stomping out the reactive nature of her exhaustion.

Nima laughed, a dry, empty laugh. "No. She didn't say explicitly who, but I have a pretty damn good idea." She looked into Squall's eyes at that point, and he could immediately tell that the only person she hated more than herself at the moment, was the person Leigh was supposed to meet. "I think she was going to see that bastard, James."

"Who exactly is this James guy?" Quistis asked.

"James..." His name came out like a slither on her tongue. "James is this guy that she met a couple months ago at a nightclub. He's an arrogant prick, and he's into some really weird shit."

A moment of silence passed before Squall spoke up. "I'm sorry Miss York, but can you please elaborate on this 'weird shit' you're talking about?"

She groaned. "I dunno, I just got this vibe like he's into some creepy voodoo hippie crap. Leigh was majoring in sociology with a minor in psychology, and this guy basically became her boyfriend _slash_ school project. I think she got in too far with him or something. None of us liked the guy. That's probably why she wouldn't let me drive her wherever she needed to go that night."

"Do you know James' last name?" he asked.

Another laugh. "You see, that's what makes me think he was into some creepy stuff." Her bloodshot eyes widened as she spoke. "He said to me, 'Hyne does not need a last name, and neither do I.'"

* * *

Squall felt unnerved. He had always thought the motivation of his killer had been lust, not a god complex. The naked women, the bindings on their hands and feet, the method of killing...it all pointed to something up close and personal, something that could have easily been driven by some sadistic sexual fantasy. The revelation about the man named James and his connection to Hyne had come as a shock. At least now, he had an idea of whom he was tracking, even though it was a vague idea at best.

There were so many men named James in Galbadia; trying to search for him in any database, criminal or otherwise, would be near impossible. Nima had tried her best to describe the man to them: about six feet tall, caucasian, in his mid to late twenties, short brown hair, blue-grey eyes, roughly one hundred and sixty pounds. It was a description that could fit any number of men in the area. He had ordered for a sketch artist from the Deling Police Department to meet with the girl and create a composite of James. For now, it was the best they could do. He hoped by tomorrow he would have a face to put to his suspect.

He sat at the desk in his office, pouring over his notes. Quistis had stayed at the police headquarters, but he found it difficult to work with all the people there, the interruptions from the homicide lieutenant, the "any new leads" question being asked over and over and over again like a broken record. Maybe Quistis felt more at home there; she faced the same scenario often enough back at Garden. He wasn't sure.

Quistis was assigned as his partner back in July, following the eighth murder, the killing of a woman named Amanda Lagarde. Squall himself had come in to investigate after Maria Dahmer, the fifth victim, was murdered in mid-April. Although he had been appreciative of Quistis' help, he wondered if she had been sent partly to keep an eye on him. It seemed strange that she would take on such a mission; her rank in SeeD usually kept her busy with much more important affairs. His suspicion wasn't some unfounded fit of paranoia, though; he knew he had been walking on thin ice with the Headmaster ever since he moved to Deling three years earlier.

Squall lit a cigarette and continued to re-read his notes from the interviews with Nima and Meredith, trying to find anything damning pointing to James. He couldn't help but find it just a little odd that the man hadn't been mentioned in previous cases. Maybe he was jumping the gun too soon in labelling him as a suspect? The problem was that everything stated thus far could only be considered as circumstantial at best. Religious fanaticism didn't necessarily equate to serial killings. Still, regardless of whether the man was a suspect or not, at the very least, he was a person of interest, and Squall needed to speak with him.

_Leigh meets James at District Nightclub 2 mos. ago  
Relationship possibly based around Leigh's uni studies  
James might've been last person to see Leigh alive  
James possibly part of a religion; may have desire to be like Hyne  
Often speaks about Hyne; almost obsessive  
Has high admiration for sorceresses; refers to them as Hyne's descendants  
James NOT a student at U of G  
Seen driving an older black sedan on occasion; make/model unknown  
Residence unknown, but has often met with Leigh downtown  
Frequently seen at nightclubs downtown by Leigh's friends on weekends_

Squall paused for a moment and thought back to the other victims. None had any apparent involvement with a man fitting James' profile, and this fact only compounded his frustrations further. He and Quistis had exhausted all the leads they could dig up to this point, often revisiting them over and over until they became entirely redundant; so far, not one seemed to produce anything significant. The only thing he could think was that perhaps he was missing something, something written in between the scrawled lines of his notes.

* * *

Dead eyes. He wasn't sure if they looked that way because they had been replicated in pencil, or if they looked that way in real life, but it was all he could focus on as he observed the composite in front of him. Nima had confirmed with an enthusiastic certainty that the drawing was an accurate depiction of the man named James, but noted that in person, he carried himself in a way that could only be described as cunning.

"We need to get the media broadcasting this picture as soon as possible," Quistis stated, looking to him for affirmation.

He didn't offer it. "Not yet."

She raised an eyebrow, surprised by his answer. "Why not? It's our best chance at getting a full name on this guy."

Squall shook his head. "No. If we put his face on the news now, even if it's just as a person of interest, he might go into hiding. We have a few places we can check that we know he goes to often. The nightclubs downtown would be a good starting point."

Quistis folded her arms across her chest and let out a sigh. "So what, Squall, do you wanna go in and check the surveillance videos? Those clubs hold hundreds of people at a time. You have to be kidding yourself if you really think you're going to spot him in that kind of crowd, especially against a drawing!"

"I take it you haven't been to any of the nightclubs down here, then?"

She laughed. "No, I can't say that I have. It's not exactly my idea of a good time." A smile crossed her features, almost mischievous, and for a moment, she wasn't his partner, the facade giving way to the big sister she had been to him ever since they were small. "Wait. Are you telling me that you, Squall Leonhart, have gone out to party at some club full of smutty women and _douchebags_?"

It was his turn to laugh then; he had never heard her use such crude terminology to describe anyone before. He might have expected it from Zell or Irvine, but certainly not from _Quistis. _"Well, I will inform you that yes, I had a brief period in time a few years back where I did check out a few places and do a few things that twenty-somethings are supposed to do...but that's beside the—"

"—Was that the incident with the guys?" she blurted. "Was that why Cid was so upset with you?"

His eyes went cold at that moment and suddenly all the humour was sucked out of the room. "That's irrelevant." She stared at him for a moment while he mentally kicked himself, knowing that his answer had ultimately confirmed her suspicions. He tried to carry on in any case, hoping she would let it rest for the time being. "Anyways, you're right, the nightclub surveillance would be useless. What _would _be helpful is the photos taken by the camera at the door."

"Photos?" Quistis was sounding more and more sheltered by the minute, an absurd idea given all that she had been through in her thirty years.

He just nodded and continued. "Yes. When you go to the door, they scan your ID, such as your driver's license, and then they take a photo of you before they allow you to enter." He saw her eyes light up as she started to put two and two together. "Galbadia law forces these clubs to store the information in a local database in case there is a fight or something and someone needs to be identified."

Quistis was beaming. It felt like their months of hard work were about to pay off. "So, all we have to do is go down to one of these places and ask to see the database! Brilliant."

"Exactly," he said. "And then, we'll find out which James looks like the James in our sketch. That's why we can't get the media involved yet. Odds are pretty good that we'll find out his full name and address and get our chance to question him."

* * *

The two SeeDs had found their way to District Nightclub, the sparkle and the glamour vacant on the Wednesday afternoon. It was the third club they had visited thus far, the others yielding no results. Squall had his hopes set on this one being different, though; this was apparently where Leigh had met James on that fated night a couple months earlier. The owner of the establishment was standing outside, waiting for them to arrive. He was short and stocky, with bulky gold accessories adorning his neck and fingers; a tacky look, Squall decided, which ironically made the man look cheap despite the jewellery likely being worth thousands upon thousands of gil.

The man peered over his designer sunglasses before extending his hand. "You must be the two from SeeD. Kamal Contreras."

"Quistis Trepe," Quistis introduced herself and shook his hand.

"Squall Leonhart." Squall followed the motions of the gesture with reluctance. He had always had a distaste for hand-shaking, but he knew that if he was going to get the information he needed from the man's establishment, he had to remain as diplomatic as possible.

"Please, right this way." Kamal led them down the alleyway and to the back door of the club. The alternate entry could easily be mistaken for any hole in the wall, a stark contrast to the flashy signage and fascia of the main entrance.

"Mr. Contreras, are you aware of a man named James who frequents your establishment?" Quistis asked once they were inside.

The owner shook his head. "No, I can't say I am. This place has so many regulars, it's hard to keep track of who's who." He walked over to the office and loaded the database onto his computer. A long list of faces, names, and addresses came up on the screen. "This has every single person who has walked in over the past week."

Kamal typed in a search query for the name 'James'. The list shortened and Squall pulled out a photocopy of their sketch. He adjusted his glasses and began to observe the men, one face at a time. Quistis leaned over the desk and stared intently at the monitor as Kamal slowly scrolled down the list. One by one, they crossed off the men; too blonde, too fat, too skinny...too something. And then Squall saw him.

Dead eyes.

"That's him, right there," he said and pointed to the monitor. Quistis took the sketch from his hands and compared it once, twice, and on the third time, nodded.

"You're right."

James Karl Grayson stared back at them with those same empty, dead grey eyes that told of nothingness, and a fox-like smile that said he ruled the world.


	5. Chapter 4: Clean

_****__**Author's Note:** __Phew, there was too much delay on this chapter! I kept re-working it... Really, it could have went on forever, but I digress. I hope you enjoy!  
_

* * *

4. Clean

It smelled like bleach, mixed with the faint scent of the vanilla air freshener that hung from the rear view mirror. The car had met a fair share of people in its lifetime; angry abusive men who had bloodied their knuckles from striking their girlfriends, piss drunks who had literally pissed themselves, hazy addicts who had lashed out when they realized where they were, murderers who had been trying to elude them and ultimately failed... Now, the car was speeding through the streets of Deling toward their destination and the man that Squall hoped would deliver the answers he so desperately sought. A part of him had wished that Quistis was there, but he knew that she hadn't slept in days and told her to take the time to recuperate before they had to question James.

The uniformed officer who was driving had rambled on endlessly about how he had wanted to join SeeD, but didn't get accepted to Garden, and how he became a policeman because of his strong sense of justice, and _blah, blah, blah_... Squall had stopped listening at some point, but the man didn't seem to notice at all. At first, he had half-heartedly tried to add in an "mmm-hmm" or a "yeah, maybe" when the man seemed to pause, but after the fifth or sixth time, he had simply given up, and the self-righteous tirade continued.

His phone buzzed in the pocket of his jeans and he struggled awkwardly in his seat to retrieve it. He flicked the screen on, adjusting his glasses so that he could read what it had to say. He let out a faint sigh when he saw who it was; Rinoa never texted him unless she needed something, and this time was no different. _"Hey Squall I need a favour. Can u please take Ellie tomorrow night instead? Have plans and can't bring her."_

Although he was happy to have his daughter for the extra night, he felt a pang in his stomach when he thought of _what _plans Rinoa could've had that she didn't want to take Ellie to. They had been separated for four years, now, and even though the time had grown wider, his feelings for her still lingered deep. Sometimes he wondered if they would ever fade away. A part of him hoped that they would so that he could truly move on, but a greater part of him wanted to hang onto them forever in hopes that one day she would feel the same again. He had tried being with other women, but not one had been able to fill the empty space that Rinoa left behind.

He sat there dumbly as the car pulled into the driveway of the suburban home, staring at his phone. Only the roaring of silence in his ears brought him back to reality when he realized the car's engine had shut off and the rambling police officer was no longer talking. He texted her a quick _"sure" _and stepped out of the car, mentally readying himself to meet the man named James.

Squall thought back to the image he saw of the man at the nightclub earlier that day—those dead eyes—and wondered what he would be like in real life. He had framed out this idea in his head from the interview with Nima and the photo; it was the profile of a headstrong man, obsessed with dreams and deluded with illusions of grandeur. He wasn't too unlike a certain rival from years past...

Squall took one glance back at the officer—the man had told him his name somewhere in that rant, but he'd never bothered to let it register—and started walking toward the entrance of the house. It was oddly normal, he thought, too normal for the man who apparently lived inside of it. The facade didn't do anything to ease his nerves, however, accomplishing only the opposite. He felt for the handgun holstered to his waist in the hopes of obtaining some fleeting sense of reassurance. _He's just a person of interest, not a suspect, _he reminded himself before moving his hand back to his side._ Plus, he'd be fucking stupid to try anything right now._

One ring of the bell was all it took before he heard someone on the other side of the door. "Police department!" he shouted. "Open up!"

The entrance opened, almost violently, exposing a more than startled woman. Her eyes widened as she looked outside the door and saw Squall and the officer standing there armed with handguns, squad car sitting in the driveway, a warning of ominous things to come. "Wha...What is THIS?" she asked, wild eyes searching Squall's for answers. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello, ma'am. My name is Squall Leonhart; I'm with SeeD. The officer is with Deling PD. We're looking for James Grayson," Squall stated, mentally kicking himself for not knowing the officer's name and realizing how unprofessional he must have sounded. The woman didn't seem to take much notice, though, still stunned by the fact that they had showed up on her doorstep in the first place. "Is he here?"

"No, he's not. He comes and goes," she told him. "Why? What is this about?"

"Are you his mother?" he asked. When she nodded in reply, he continued, "We need to speak with your son regarding a murder. We believe that he may have been one of the last people to see our victim alive, and we need him to help us figure out what exactly happened."

"Is James in trouble?"

_Maybe. _"No, but it's critical that he speak with us as soon as possible." Squall reached in his coat and handed the woman a business card. "Please, if you hear from him, tell him to call me. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, it doesn't matter whether he _wants_ to call me or not... You're his mother. Make _sure_ that he does." There was a bite in his tone, forceful and unyielding, that made her move back slightly.

She stood there, dumbfounded, business card in her hand. Squall could tell that she didn't know what to think or feel—_would you if you were in her shoes, Squall?—_by the expression on her face. It was a combination of grim disbelief and worry, and he wondered if she sensed his guilt before any of the pieces were even laid in place. "...What if I don't see him?" she asked hesitantly.

"Find a way."

* * *

"_He wasn't there?" _Quistis' voice was a shade straddled somewhere between disappointment and frustration, clearly evident even through the speaker of his cell phone. _"Now what?"_

"I'm not sure, we just gotta hope he turns up." Squall knew it sounded like a lost cause. It _felt _like a lost cause, too; he had learned from James' mother that he was an obscure man who came in and out of her life, and was currently _out_. She hadn't let on much else, though, and Squall couldn't distinguish whether it was because she was protecting him or because she was ashamed of him.

Quistis paused thoughtfully before she spoke. _"Did you take a swab from her to test the DNA against the blood we found on the victim? If it matches, we can get a warrant out on him."_

"She wouldn't consent. There just isn't enough evidence to force her to, either," he told her. "I think she knows he's guilty, though. Mother's intuition, perhaps? I'm not sure; it's just the vibe she gave off."

Quistis laughed. _"The 'vibe', Squall? Did I really just hear you say that?"_

"...Yes, I suppose you did." He felt himself get flushed and was thankful that she couldn't see him. He considered trying to explain his vocabulary, but ultimately decided that it would be better to just leave it out of fear that he might dig himself an even deeper hole to crawl into.

_"You've changed."_

"Does it matter?"

_"Sorry, it's just...never mind." _He could hear the smile in her voice as she pushed forward. _"Anyways, was that it? Surely you must have picked up on SOMETHING while you were at his house?"_

"I didn't go away completely empty-handed," he replied. "It was like pulling teeth, but I managed to get his car's make, model and license plate from his mother. I got one of the officers at the police department to put out a BOLO on it. Hopefully they'll track it down."

_"Alright, well, keep me informed," _she conceded.

"Will do," he replied. "Talk soon."

_"Bye."_

Squall cast his phone to the coffee table and sprawled himself across his couch. He knew that there were a million things he could be doing at the moment, but his heart simply wasn't in it. His mind kept going back to the text message he had received from Rinoa earlier that day; it had made his heart fall and twist into knots. He would be the first to admit that he was still in love with her, still trapped in the mentality of sorceress and knight, a cage from which he wished he could be freed.

_God, I am such a fucking idiot, _he reprimanded himself. _All over a woman. You're a hopeless romantic, Leonhart._

He glanced at his watch. It had been a long day of hitting the pavement in search of leads, and he'd officially resigned himself from work, too caught up in his own thoughts to concentrate. The investigation had been under his command for the better part of seven months, now, but it felt like a small eternity, taking up most of his waking hours and turning sleep into a rare and precious commodity. He wasn't even sure if James was going to play out the way he wanted; history dictated that the lead would stagnate just like every other one before had, and he was beginning to wonder if he was going around in circles. It was exhausting to say the least, and at times, he felt like he had virtually no life outside of his work.

And as much as he loved the anonymity that came with living in Deling, he found himself missing parts of his old life, namely the friendships he had forged with his comrades following the defeat of Ultimecia. He had been reluctant to get close to them at first, despite all they had been through, but after awhile, he found himself actually _enjoying _their company as he discovered more about who they were; unique individuals with interests and talents and values all their own, so much more than SeeD, more than Garden...

And it seemed that the more he learned about them, the more he realized that he didn't really have any ideas about who _he_ was. Outside of his work, he had no real hobbies, no real interests, no real anything. It was a revelation that had truly surprised him, and so he had worked tirelessly to form some semblance of an identity for himself, taking the time to uncover who exactly Squall Leonhart was supposed to be. In turn, his friends had treated him to a plethora of experiences that he had apparently missed out on, and it had been one of the greatest periods of his life.

Back when things weren't so...broken.

Rinoa had insisted that they go to the seaside amusement park in Balamb one night, where he found out that he enjoyed roller coasters, but the tilt-a-whirl had made his stomach acid churn violently and it had taken all that he had not to vomit. She had laughed at him then, amazed that the brave SeeD commander who had travelled through time to defeat a terrible sorceress could not handle a carnival ride made for children. It hadn't helped that he had also tried cotton candy for the first time that evening, too, but in the end, it was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect evening. She had been so stunning that night, the smell of sea salt and honey lingering on her skin, the way she smiled when he won her a stuffed chocobo that had since been passed to Ellie. It was one of his favourite memories of her, one that he refused to let go of no matter what their circumstance had become.

Then there was the time that Selphie had tried to teach him how to draw, and he remembered how amazed he was at her natural ability; she had an innate understanding of form that came out in amazing illustrations that reflected her personality. His attempt at art, however, was nothing more than a crude copy of her original work, awkward, clumsy lines and ghostly eraser marks littering the paper. Thinking back on it, he figured that a two-year-old probably could've done a better job than he had. She had tried her best to be patient and encouraging, but the night had ultimately ended with a six-pack of beer, pizza, a lame sitcom on TV, and a lot of drawings crumpled in her trash can.

Quistis hadn't offered Squall much by way of activities, but he remembered when they would stay up well past curfew and talk over coffee or tea or wine in the cafeteria (which only a privileged few had access to after-hours). He hadn't told her to talk to a wall since the night of his graduation, an act that he still felt guilty for even after she had long since forgiven him. She might not have been his blood relative, but in his mind, they had developed a brother-sister relationship that ran deeper than biological ties ever could, and he was pretty sure that she felt the same way. The fact that she was with him now was a small relief; it had been great to have her around again.

As for his brothers-in-arms, Zell and Irvine had made it their mission to break him out of his shell and do what they had termed "guy stuff". Squall quickly discovered that he hated watching sports, that he found fishing to be a waste of time and thought it should be renamed "ocean watching", and that he wasn't fond of first-person shooters that mimicked their military exploits. After several attempts at trying to find new things to do, he had found himself wondering if he had anything at all in common with the two men.

It was only after Rinoa left with Ellie that Irvine had decided to divulge Squall about side life he'd been leading in Galbadia, something that he had kept a close secret, out of the ever-watchful eyes of Garden. Squall hadn't given the information much thought at the time, too wrapped up in his own wallowing and self-pity to even care about what the cowboy was implying. However, when Irvine had dragged him and Zell out to Deling one weekend, they found themselves thrust into a world that was completely foreign, a place where SeeD didn't matter, where no one cared, where the rules and regulations that engulfed their everyday lives didn't exist, where they were free...

It was on that weekend that Squall had discovered a side to himself that he hadn't known existed—that he couldn't _believe _existed. He felt like he was in someone else's body, that it was all some twisted and vicarious lie, or maybe a dream that he was bound to wake up from. However, he found the whole experience to be an exhilarating change from the long days he had spent thinking about Rinoa and Ellie and wondering where he had went wrong. He remembered how he rejoiced at the very idea of letting his mind drift out to sea and sink into the warm embrace of nothing.

That was the first time that Squall Leonhart had truly lost himself to the moment, and the strange part was that it hadn't bothered him at all...

_Stop it. Just stop it. _His mind forced him back into the present before he let himself get swept up in intoxicating memories. He picked up the remote control off the coffee table and turned the TV on in order to drown out his thoughts.

_"...Isabella Winter will be accepting the position of Galbadia's Diplomatic Ambassador, marking a great stride in the nation's transition to full democracy. She will be formally introduced to international leaders at the summit taking place in just under two weeks' time..."_

Squall stared at woman on the screen; she appeared quite young to be an ambassador. He guessed that she couldn't have been any older than thirty. However, the way she held herself—proud and confident, with cherry red lips curled into a smile that could kill—said everything that words couldn't. She seemed very much like Ultimecia—wrapped up in Edea's body—during the time she had reigned as the ambassador for the republic. And, not unlike Ultimecia, it appeared as though this woman had an agenda for the country, too.

But then again, what politician didn't?

Feeling the slight hand of frustration wrap its wiry digits around his mind, he decided to change the channel. The last thing he needed was to get stressed over the very thing that was supposed to help him unwind in the first place. An old movie found its way to his TV screen; a comedy about office life that he was sure he had watched at least a half-dozen times. He had related well to the ire it depicted, almost a mockery of working in his office back in Garden. But as much as he wanted to follow along with the storyline, his body wanted to fall away. He felt sleep start to tug at his eyelids as the television buzzed quietly on. At one point, he could feel himself slipping into the quiet grasp of slumber, slow and gentle and even...

His phone started going off, vibrating across the coffee table with a life of its own. Squall grabbed the nuisance, albeit reluctantly, and cursed under his breath. It was _him,_ another politician with an agenda, although not the type his counterparts usually schemed up. No, _this _politician took things to a much more personal level.

"Hello," Squall half-snarled.

_"Hey, Squall! Did I catch you at a bad time?" _Laguna's cheery voice rang sharply through the cell phone speaker.

"...No...What's up?" He regretted the words as soon as they came spilling out of his mouth. Even a simple question like "what's up" could send Laguna off on a lengthy ramble about absolutely nothing. Squall bit the inside of his cheek as a few choice expletives entered his mind.

_"Oh, you know! The usual! How's Ellie doing?" _Laguna asked._ "Is she ready for a visit from Grandpa?"_

Squall tried his best to suppress a groan at the thought of another visit from Laguna Loire. He knew it was coming as soon as he saw the news about the summit on TV. His relationship with his father had not changed the way he thought it would with time; instead, it remained at something of a stalemate. Squall no longer felt the same level of resentment that he had when he first found out about his lineage, but still, trying to have a real father-son connection with the man seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream. The only real reason he still tried was because of Ellie; regardless of how he felt, he didn't want to deprive her of her grandfather.

So, instead of complaining and making excuses to get out of visiting, Squall conceded. "Yes, I think she would like that. You'll be here in two weeks, for the summit, right?"

_"Yeah, that's right! I'm thinking of coming a few days early to get in some more family time beforehand!"_

_Fuck. _"That sounds great," Squall replied, hoping his voice didn't reflect the displeasure he felt.

_"Uh...cool, then. Is there anything in particular you want to do? What does Ellie like to do? I have a present for her! She's growing up so darn fast... Every time I see her, I swear she's grown at least a couple inches... Soon I won't be able to carry her..." _

Squall tried to ignore the migraine that was threatening to rise behind his eyes. He pulled a cigarette out of his pack and lit it awkwardly, struggling to keep the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear. He wasn't really listening to the man on the other line at all, not that it appeared to matter much; Laguna seemed totally content to carry on the conversation by himself as words bubbled rabidly out of his mouth. Back when Squall was a teenager, he wouldn't have given a second thought to hanging up on his father, but as time passed, Laguna had taken the will to fight out of him. He was incredibly persistent, and no matter how many walls Squall put up, or how many excuses he invented, the man simply would not go away.

He passed the time by trying to make smoke rings as he waited for his cue to say a quick "goodbye". The opportunity didn't come though, and he found himself haphazardly following Laguna and trying to go through the motions of dialogue. All the while, he was attempting to comprehend how one person could have so much to talk about in a single sitting. He, personally, was out of things to say the moment he let out the word "hello".

_"...So, how are you doing with, you know, everything? Is it going alright still?"_

The question slammed into his ears like a ton of bricks. To anyone else, it would have been nothing, but Squall knew his father well enough to know better; it was a bullet in the chamber, loaded and ready to fire. "...Fine. Don't worry about it." His voice was nonchalant, uninterested, a distant cry from the thoughts that stomped across his mind.

_"You know I'm looking out for your best interests," _Laguna said, and there was a slight pause before he added, "_Just...keep your nose clean."_

* * *

Quistis sat across from him, aimlessly stirring her coffee as she tried to feign some sense of liveliness. After the conversation with his father, Squall couldn't handle himself, and had asked the blonde for a distraction in the guise of company. He felt weak for needing her to take his mind off things; even though Rinoa had taught him that friends were there for him to depend on, he still couldn't shake the idea that it was _wrong _somehow.

They had agreed to meet at a diner near the apartment she was renting downtown; it was a quaint little establishment that Squall had visited on more than one occasion. There was nothing particularly special about the place, save for the fact that it was open twenty-four hours a day. The food was alright and the coffee was so-so, the atmosphere warmed by tungsten lights.

"Well, are you gonna tell me what's going on?" Quistis broke the silence. "Did you hear something on James?"

He shook his head, guilt creeping up on him for dragging his colleague out when she clearly had better, _sleepier _things to take care of. "No...sorry. I just...," he hesitated, knowing that he was going to sound incredibly flaky and irrational once he explained himself. "I just had a phone call with my father, and I guess something he said brought back a few shitty memories."

"About Rinoa?" she prodded.

"Sort of... I suppose she is related indirectly."

Her eyebrow quirked. "So...? Are you going to share or are you planning to be vague about it?"

At that moment, the waitress came by, a welcome interruption. Squall eyed her as she performed a balancing act with their food, dishes settled precariously across her arms. "Your omelette..." She set a plate down in front of Quistis, who smiled and mouthed a quick "thanks" to the girl. "...and here is your club sandwich with fries. Please let me know if you need anything else! Enjoy!"

"...How can you eat breakfast at this hour of night?" Squall asked.

Quistis shrugged in response. "Because, I never have a craving for breakfast food in the morning. It's something I eat only for dinner and late at night... But that's beside the point." Her blue eyes darted up at him, narrowing behind the silver frames of her glasses. She knew him too well, and he could feel the weight of her gaze as it sat heavy on his face, searching for telltale signs for deceit. "You're changing the subject, Mr. Leonhart. The real question is _why _am I here with you, eating this food at this hour?"

"Nothing important, really," he stated plainly, shifting his gaze down to his plate. He couldn't look at her; her expression was too insistent. It was easier to start a staring match with his sandwich and pretend that nothing was amiss. "It's a long and boring story."

"Well, I'm here now, so you may as well tell me," she countered.

He wasn't sure he wanted to let Quistis know about everything; the last thing he needed was to be disgraced in her eyes. She was practically his sister, and this story would do nothing but let her down and expose him for what he had become. It had already caused enough turmoil in his life, from his standing with SeeD to his relationship with his family to what was left between him and Rinoa. It was the very reason he was on thin ice in Garden, and why he would only ever be a weekend father, and despite all his best efforts to fix everything, the tarnish of his choices was still stained on his name. He dared a glance back up to Quistis and let out a long, slow sigh. His throat was starting to constrict, nerves firing like warning flares as he began to speak.

"I need you to promise me that it's not going to affect our relationship, professionally and personally." His eyes looked up into hers, pleading, every bit the lost and confused boy underneath the man.

She nodded. "Of course, Squall. You know nothing could change that."

He smiled a pallid, forced smile, struggling to build up the courage, all for one sentence; one sentence that he only ever admitted to himself.

Just.

One.

Sentence.

* * *

_****__**Author's Note:** __I know what you're thinking (or at least I think I do)... Next chapter, I promise.  
_


	6. Chapter 5: Spiral

**_Author's Note:_ **_Okay, I have to admit, I am extremely nervous about posting this chapter. It contains some drug use and it's quite a bit twisted compared to the previous chapters. My aim here is to give you some back story as to what happened to Squall that would turn him into the person he is in my story. I just hope you will read it with an open mind, and know that I don't necessarily condone this behaviour._

_Also, the song lyrics are from "Home" by Zero 7. You should absolutely listen to that song while reading this chapter (start it when the lyrics start). You can find it on Youtube!  
_

* * *

5. Spiral

_Three and a half years earlier..._

It wasn't supposed to hurt like this. Not for this long. Sadness was a wraith haunting his thoughts, turning in his stomach, robbing air from his lungs. He was spending all his free time locked up in the apartment; the one that Garden had set up for him and Rinoa, so that they could raise their family together. It was painful just to be there, but the alternative—facing all those people—was no more desirable. He wished he were see-through; just disappear and never be found again. But as soon as the thought arose, a part of him admonished himself for being so selfish.

_You have a kid, now, _half of his mind cried, while the other half shouted back, _She doesn't need someone like you._

He felt bi-polar.

And he must not have been hiding it well, because the pity party had arrived at his doorstep. Irvine stood in the doorway of his apartment, an unusually sympathetic smile plastered on his face. The cowboy didn't wait for an invitation as he proceeded to come inside and settle on the couch. "Hey man, what's up? Are ya busy?"

Squall raised an eyebrow at him, incredulous, before shaking his head. He let out a cold, humourless laugh. '_Am I busy'? Are you fucking serious? Have you been living under a rock for the past five months or are you really just that dense? _He wanted to laugh, cry, fly off the handle and start yelling at Irvine...but he did nothing. His eyes shifted back to the floor and he silently waited for the man to leave.

"Well, seein' as you're just sitting around here, I'd like to let you in on a little something," Irvine said. Squall didn't react to the words, so he chose to continue. "I've been getting out to Deling quite a bit these days, and I thought maybe you'd wanna come with for a weekend? You know, get your mind off things and just have some fun. Let me tell you, there are a lot of girls down—"

"—What about Selphie? You're just gonna betray her like that?" Squall's voice was deadpan.

"...Well, no, man, but you..." He stopped for a moment while he tried to figure out the right thing to say. "Squall, you gotta stop sitting around in Garden and moping all day. It's starting to get a little pathetic."

At that statement, he looked up at Irvine and sighed. "You just don't know what this is like. You don't have a kid."

"Maybe so," Irvine accepted. "But still, do you think that one weekend in Deling is really going to hurt you any more than sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself? A change of scenery might do you well. I've even got Zell on board."

Squall didn't want to admit it, but he knew his friend had a point. He had spent the better part of five months sitting in his apartment and contemplating absolutely anything and everything he could think of, from why Rinoa left up to why he even had to exist in the first place. Not even the paperwork and the bureaucracy of his job were enough to distract him. It was miserable.

His troubled eyes met Irvine's, deep blue pools telling a story that the blank look on his face wouldn't. Irvine didn't shrink away, meeting Squall's stare with equal resolve. Squall resented the man in front of him—resented all of them—for breaking through his shell the way they had, recklessly tearing down his walls and exposing him for what he really was. Weak. Petty. Foolish.

And yet...

His mind was at war with his heart, telling him to abandon the emptiness and take Irvine up on his offer, that it wouldn't hurt any more than he was hurting now, that maybe the trip could offer a new perspective on his situation that he hadn't yet explored. It was just that _doing _things didn't seem right without her, although he couldn't quite understand why he was still waiting. She hadn't come back for him, and there was no indication that she was changing her mind any time soon. He was alone and adrift, their bond broken into a thousand little shards.

"...Well? Are you in?" Irvine asked.

He kept silent, only for a moment, as he drew in a long, slow breath before nodding his head. "...I guess I am."

* * *

By the time they checked in to the Galbadia Hotel, night was threatening to fall and blanket the city. Squall didn't mind, though. He had always enjoyed the bright lights that adorned the dark air. Absently, he ran a hand through his hair as he gazed out the window to the frenzy below. A long, low breath escaped his lips, paranoia creeping up on his mind in anticipation of what Irvine had planned for the evening.

Zell's reflection broke his thoughts, the martial artist using the window to perfect his appearance. He pushed up the sleeves of his grey hooded sweater and started messing with the zipper, all the way up, undone, half-up... "What do you think, man?" His hands moved up to his hair, fingers messing it up slightly. "Will the ladies go for this?"

Squall let out a dry laugh and shook his head. "You're asking the wrong person. I don't have the faintest clue."

Zell had notoriously bad luck with women, from the girl who worked in the library at Garden, to pathetic matchmaking attempts from Rinoa and Selphie, to horrible hook-ups from Irvine. Zell was always so eager and energetic, and women always seemed to mistake it for immaturity, or sometimes desperation. Regardless, Zell always seemed relatively unbothered by his track record; perhaps his expectations simply weren't that high, or perhaps he just never took things too seriously in the first place. Either way, Squall secretly wondered how he could put up with so much rejection from the opposite sex and bounce back every time. He knew he certainly couldn't.

Zell shot him a wide smile and gave him a small punch in the shoulder. "It's good to see you getting back in the game, anyways, man."

If looks could kill, Zell would have died right where he stood. Squall's grimace at the words made sure that the martial artist knew full well what he thought of them. "I'm not looking to do anything more than get my mind off things," he stated sharply.

The lock on the door unlatched and Irvine burst into the room, holding two brown paper bags and looking rather proud of himself. "Hey, hey! Got your pre-drinks, boys!"

Squall raised an eyebrow. "Pre-drinks?"

Irvine nodded and pulled two bottles of expensive Galbadian vodka, a bottle of soda, and a mickey of cheap gin out of the bags. "Pre-drinks. As in drinks that you drink _prior _to going out drinking." He proceeded to pour the vodka and soda into glasses provided by the hotel, and handed the concoctions to Squall and Zell. "Cheers!"

"Cheers, dude," Zell said, taking a generous drink.

Squall still didn't feel convinced, slowly sipping on his drink as he contemplated what the hell he was doing. _This so isn't like me... God, why did I even come? What good is this going to do? _His thoughts spun around in his head, but he chose to keep them silent, knowing that voicing his concerns now would do nothing. He was already in too deep, and they hadn't even started. "What exactly is the plan, then?" he asked instead. "Because if either of you are bringing women back here, I'm getting another room."

"Well, we should probably start out at District, which is just a couple blocks from here. A couple of girls I know will be down there tonight," Irvine mused. "After that, well... let's just see where the night takes us."

* * *

The bass changed his heart rate. In the hazy blue light of the club, he could see the outlines of men and women gnashing together in a myriad of ways while a DJ stood over them, godlike, as he unleashed massive soundscapes over the speakers. Irvine had left to find his friends, and Zell had headed into the depths of the crowd, apparently in search of a dance partner.

He found himself at the bar on the upper level of the venue, where the fog wasn't so thick and the smell of sweat wasn't quite so strong. He felt out of place at best, unsure of what to do with himself in such a foreign environment. The only dances he had ever attended were ballroom affairs put on for SeeD graduates, complete with orchestra band and formal wear. _This _was a mess of scant clothing and promiscuity and alcohol and drugs and everything else that was banned by Garden.

He felt the alcohol cloud his mind and numb out his thoughts. Without it, he wasn't sure he would be able to handle the atmosphere. Irvine's plan of "pre-drinking" had some merit in that regard; he had already started feeling the effects before they even arrived. Now, on his fifth drink of the night—gin and tonic—he found that, in spite of everything, the foreignness, the complete lack of regulation, he was almost enjoying himself. There was nothing here to remind him of what had happened over the past five months, nothing to tell him what a failure he was, or how badly he had messed everything up...

Here, he could leave it all behind, and even though it was only temporary, it was welcome nonetheless.

A woman set herself beside him at the bar. "Two tequila shots, please and thanks," she said, and the bartender obliged. Squall stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye; she was young, probably in her early twenties, with short hair dyed an unnatural shade of red, and an outfit that was skin tight and, although not exactly skimpy, still managed to leave very little to the imagination. She met his gaze and set a shot and lime wedge in front of him. "Cheers."

He gave her a confused look. "I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong person."

"No, I don't."

Squall shrugged and chimed his shot against hers, taking down the drink in one sour gulp before biting into the lime wedge. It was awful, cheap tequila, nothing like what he could get back in Balamb. "Thanks," he managed, trying to throw the bitter taste off his tongue.

"I'm Zurie," she told him, with a suspect smile.

"Squall."

"Squall, eh? Weird name..." She put a hand on her chin to mimic pensiveness. "What are you doing here? You seem so sad and out of place all by yourself!"

He shrugged. "Just here with a couple friends. They took off somewhere."

"Hm, that sucks. I hate getting ditched." She eyed him up and down once, and he suddenly felt self-conscious. He hadn't bothered to dress up at all for the occasion, sporting a plain black t-shirt and black jeans. He watched as her wandering eyes stopped at his crotch, and he grew flushed, shooting her a look of pure astonishment.

"Can I _help _you?" he asked, not bothering to mask the harshness in his tone.

"Oh, sorry, I was just looking at your belt buckle," she said. "Is that a lion?"

"Oh, uh, yeah..." Astonishment turned to embarrassment, and he downed the rest of his gin and tonic in an attempt to hide his reddening face. "It is."

"I see you have a tattoo of one, too?" She poked her finger under the sleeve of his t-shirt and he flinched slightly. "What's the deal with you and lions?"

"Lions are known for pride and strength," he stated, pulling away from her prying hands. "I guess the sentiment used to be an aspiration of mine."

"I see, I see..." Something about the way she moved was off to him; she carried herself almost lazily, free-flowing and unbothered. "Do you smoke?"

Squall wondered if this girl had attention deficit disorder; she bounced around from topic to topic at a rapid-fire pace, unable to stay on-track for more than a few seconds at a time. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him down the stairs and out the back door, away from the music and the bodies, into the smoke pit, which was abuzz with chatter in the cool April air. His hands went to his arms to keep himself warm, and he silently cursed himself for checking his jacket at the door. Zurie handed him a cigarette from her pack and lit it for him. Smoking was something of a new habit for Squall, a coping mechanism to make up for his utter lack of coping mechanisms.

"Thanks," he said. He took a long drag. Reality was starting to tip a little, and he felt as though he was... _Dreaming?_

"Hey, Squall!" Irvine waved at him from the other end of the pit, sending him back into the moment. He was hard to notice right away without his usual cowboy hat; dressed casually, he blended in well with the crowd. "Come over here! I wanna introduce you to a couple of the coolest chicks you'll ever meet!"

Squall took a look at Zurie and motioned for her to follow him. As soon as he did so, he wondered if the alcohol was affecting him to the point of diluting his judgement. _What the hell am I doing? I don't even know this girl..., _he reprimanded himself. _Other than that shitty shot and the smoke, I don't owe her a fucking thing. I should have let her come out here by herself. Maybe if I'm lucky, Irvine will take her off my hands..._

Squall and Zurie walked up to Irvine and the two women. He observed them carefully in an attempt to reassure himself that he was still thinking clearly, and he found that his focus was starting to waver ever so slightly as drinks number five and six crawled into his mind with a warm buzz. Even still, he determined that the two women were gorgeous—quite possibly model material—and that Irvine's intentions were less-than admirable. The vague image of a devastated Selphie flashed in his thoughts before it was interrupted by the sound of the cowboy's voice.

"Squall, this is Meja and Nathalie," Irvine said and motioned to the two women beside him. "I met them a few months ago at a house party."

_Congratulations. _"Hello," he said and nodded to the two women.

Irvine nudged him. "Who is the lovely lady you have with you, man?"

Squall glanced back to the girl, who was rifling through her purse, unaware that she had become the centre of attention. "This is Zurie," he said.

"Hiya!" She waved at the group before returning her attention back to her purse. Squall watched as her face turned from determined to frustrated, and then to relieved in a matter of seconds. She drew out a tiny plastic bag, filled with some sort of grainy yellowish powder. Her eyes darted to his and she quickly closed her hand around the bag to conceal it from his sight.

_What am I getting myself into?_

"Where's Zell?" Irvine asked. "We're gonna get a round of shots."

"I'm not sure," he replied, finishing his cigarette. "Last I saw he was dancing somewhere, probably with some poor unsuspecting girl."

"Heh. Oh well, if he turns up, he turns up," Irvine said. "Let's go hit up the bar."

They retreated back inside the club, bass thundering throughout as loud electronic funk music filled the room. Squall looked behind him to see Zurie sniffing whatever drug off her hand, completely disregarding anyone who may have seen her. Her watery smile drenched her features as she stumbled after him. He felt awkward in that moment, and it dawned upon him that he didn't belong there, but the feeling dissipated in an instant as he found himself at the bar, ready to acquaint himself with drink number seven.

"Five Jäger Bombs," came Irvine's voice. He offered the bartender seven-hundred gil, and threw all the change into the tip jar. Once all five of them had their drinks, Irvine raised his glasses, one containing the energy drink and the other, the shot. "To the start of an awesome night!"

_The 'start'...? _Squall thought. _Aren't we already well into this?_ His thoughts beaconed out the warning, but he followed along anyway, dropping the shot into the energy drink and taking it all back in a matter of seconds. He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned violently to see Zell's cheeky smile looking back at him.

"'Sup man?" Zell wiped the sweat on the back of his hand, the result of dancing for the better part of the last hour.

Squall shrugged. "Oh, you know, just trying to keep up—"

"Zell! There you are!" Irvine yelled over the music. "We'll have to do another round now that you're here!"

A second wave of drinks made its way through the group and Squall felt himself stumble over the line from buzzed to drunk, fleetingly shattering his boundaries as he began to let go. Over the course of eight drinks, he had gone from reluctant to acceptant to eager, as though someone else had taken him over. _Maybe this is how you're supposed to feel. Did you ever think of that?_

The night began to take him away, one giant sweeping motion that carried him through a whirlwind of newness, and he was introduced to a different side of himself. The SeeD Commander, the knight, the bureaucrat, the son, the father; all of the titles that he had acquired and the roles that he had played were stripped away here, and all that was left was Squall Leonhart, a young, lost, and vulnerable human being who wanted nothing more than to live in this moment and be twenty-five like he was supposed to be.

He heard himself laugh, truly laugh, for the first time in what felt like forever, as he and Irvine conversed over yet another drink, hot tears rolling down his face as he struggled to contain his amusement. Every single problem that had plagued his mind earlier had now completely vanished, replaced by the warm comfort of absolutely nothing. He didn't care if he was drunk, didn't care if the feeling was real or not, because it _felt _real right now, and that was good enough for him.

At some point, they had decided to move from the club to a house party that was going on at a friend of...Squall wasn't sure whom, but he couldn't care less. He barely remembered to retrieve his jacket from the coat check before they left the nightclub; thankfully, Zell still had some semblance of sobriety to his thoughts and had reminded him.

Zurie had decided to tag along to the party, and he didn't stop her, and didn't stop himself from putting his arm around her in the back of the taxi, and they didn't stop smiling and laughing and talking and _who exactly was he again?_

Squall had never been to a house party before, and wasn't quite sure what to expect. When they all arrived, there were a dozen of people on the front lawn of the residence, which was situated at the end of a relatively quiet street. The air was filled with the echo of more electronic music pounding from within the house. He felt nervous for the briefest of moments before chiding himself. _You're a fucking SeeD. You've seen and done way more shit than you'll ever find in this place. Get over it._

He followed everyone inside the house and found his way to the nearest couch. Things were spinning a little faster now as he struggled to situate himself in his new surroundings. Zurie plopped down beside him, the watery smirk never leaving her face. She was cute, he had to admit, in her own oddly quirky way, but she wasn't beautiful like Rinoa; no one could ever be as beautiful as she was in his eyes, and in an instant she was back in his head, and he could feel the sense of loss overpowering the haze, and—

"Want some?" Zurie pulled out the tiny bag of the yellowy, grainy drug he had spotted earlier. "It's K. Really good shit."

Squall blinked and the thoughts sunk away. He stared at her for a moment shook his head. "Ah...no. No, I don't do drugs," he told her, words coming out sloppily in his drunken stupor. She gave him an unconvinced look, far from pleased with his answer, but it was all he had to offer. "I'm sorry."

The reality, however, was that it was taking the last standing pillars of his better judgement _not _to give in, just for one night—one fucking night out of a lifetime of rules and regulations—and do what he wanted. He watched in half-awe as Zurie inhaled more of the drug with a hungry impatience glinting in her eye.

_WHAT am I getting myself into?_

Irvine came up from behind him and planted his hands on the back of the couch, on either side of Squall's head. "Having fun?"

He nodded. "Yeah, definitely."

"Awesome." Irvine rounded the couch and took a seat between Zurie and Squall. His eyes shifted back and forth a couple of times, seeming to take a mental note of the people in the room; only a couple people occupied it aside from the three of them. "So, let me ask, are you two into having more fun?"

Squall looked down and gulped when he saw what was in Irvine's hand. They looked innocent enough—two tiny yellow pills with a little chocobo silhouette pressed into the surface of each one—but he could only feel the onslaught of nerves at the thought of what it could do to him. He looked up into Irvine's eyes and realized they looked...different from before, glassier. "Did you take one of these? What if Garden finds out?"

"How could they? Seriously?" Irvine's expression was positively mischievous. "This isn't my first time, and really, they haven't caught me yet."

"I don't know... I've never done anything like that before."

Irvine put a firm hand on his shoulder, as if to reassure him. "Trust me. If anyone needs this, it's you. You've been through enough shit in these last few months to last you a lifetime. Honestly, I think you owe this to yourself." That same sympathetic smile crossed his features, completely genuine in spite of his own inebriation. "It's not like you're going to get addicted to it or anything. Have fun. Just let it all out tonight."

Squall wasn't sure if it was the familiar words from someone he trusted, or the alcohol twisting his judgement, or the desperate need to be free from himself, but before he knew it, he crossed the line into uncharted territory, too late to change his mind, too far in to turn back. He didn't know what to expect; the only things he knew about it came from movies and Garden's anti-drug presentations and disciplinary reports that fell upon his desk from time to time. On top of that, the only times he had ever allowed himself to feel any sort of inebriation was when he drank, which wasn't often.

He waited in anticipation. It felt like forever.

He was scared.

Excited.

Nothing happened.

Irvine chuckled. "Don't worry, dude. _You'll know_."

Squall nodded and closed his eyes. The music had moved from heavy pounding drum and bass to light, airy trip-hop, and he forced himself to concentrate on it, rather than let his mind wander. A woman sang in a low, soothing voice that calmed his very core, her words resonating through him like a gentle breeze. As the song progressed, he felt himself slip into the melody, deeper and deeper into the ocean of sounds.

_"Lost in cheap delirium...Searching the neon lights... I move carefully... Sink in the city aquarium... Sing in the key of night as they're watching me...," _the songstress in the speakers whispered in his ear.

Sweat found his palms.

His heart started to beat a little faster.

His stomach did somersaults.

He opened his eyes.

At first, it felt a little bit like junctioning a new guardian force, something alien buzzing in his head, and then it hit him—_really hit him—_and he felt his entire being come up. He drew in sharp, shaky breaths as every remaining shred of self grasped at reality, all in vain, but he didn't care anymore, didn't _need _to care anymore—

_"Won't you take me home?"_

"It's good, right?"

He looked at Irvine and found that his vision had started to slip. "Y-yeah...," he managed. His tongue felt clumsy in his mouth as he struggled to adjust to this new sensation. "It's crazy..."

He heard Irvine laugh, and felt himself start to laugh too, realizing how ridiculous he must have sounded. Everything that had happened so far this night felt new and absurd and amazing all at once, and he caught himself debating about whether or not it was actually happening. He knew this wasn't at all like him, to let himself lose control the way he had... Something inside of him broke, something he had been only vaguely aware of before tonight, and he came to realize that the person he had become was not the person he wanted to be.

_What in the FUCK did I just get myself into...?_

The logical side of him knew that this wasn't the way to solve his problems, but oddly, he wasn't haunted by the regret that he was so used to experiencing. Lament and self-loathing slithered away into a dark corner of his mind, banished, and now, he felt...he felt...

_Happy...? _

...like a stranger in his own skin.

"Thank you, Irvine," he heard himself say as he sunk into the couch. "This is..." _Remember to breathe. "_...pretty good, right here..."

The cowboy patted his arm. "I told you, man. Now, aren't you glad you listened to me?"

"I'm usually not," he joked, "but this time, yeah, I am..."

Squall took off his jacket, warmth exploding on his skin as sweat painted his pores. He ran a hand through his hair, something he did a million times before, noticing how different the mannerism felt in this state. It was nothing like being drunk. He felt in and out of control at the same time, the alcohol-induced haziness gone and replaced with unbridled honesty and a strange sense of clarity... And yet, it was all happening so fast, so heavy and yet so light; he couldn't keep up.

"Are we allowed to smoke in here?" Squall asked, fumbling for his cigarettes with cumbersome fingers.

"I dunno, I'll go ask. Be right back." Irvine stood up, somewhat shakily, and left the room.

Zurie closed the space between them, taking up the spot Irvine had just vacated. Her movements spoke volumes to him, and he figured she must have felt the same way he did...however that was supposed to be. "So, Garden, eh?" she cooed playfully. "That's where you're from? What are you, like, some sort of soldier then?"

Squall shook his head and laughed. "I'm really more of an office drone than a soldier."

"I see, I see..." She quirked an eyebrow as she looked him over. Her eyes moved to his face and she traced a finger down his scar. Over the years, it had healed over and become much fainter, now just a white thin line of scar tissue that crossed the rest of his features. "This doesn't look like something you'd get pushing papers."

"Training accident. Eight years ago." _Eight years ago?_

"Mmm-hmm... I guess even office boys have to prove themselves at a place like Garden, huh?" She pushed his hair back and he felt himself melt into her touch, so soft, kind of like—_who?—_she giggled. "Look at you. I thought you said you didn't do drugs."

"I don't," he said, attempting to feign sobriety and failing miserably. He wondered what he must have looked like, after a long night of drinking, and now this. He sat up, trying to adjust his posture and look somewhat composed in spite of what he felt. At this point it was much easier said than done, the simple action taking every ounce of his concentration to carry out. _So much for training._ "Well...call this an exception. I've...never done anything quite like this before."

Irvine came back into the room almost as quickly as he left, Nathalie—_or is she Meja? I can't remember_—and Zell in tow. Zell threw him a look of half-shock as their eyes met, and he hurried over to the couch, pushing Zurie out of the way in his haste. "Squall, Irvine is pretty messed up on something... I think we should go back to the—" He stopped for a moment. "Oh Hyne, don't tell me you've done that shit too? What the hell, man?"

"Zell, calm down," Squall ordered, trying to find his best commanding tone. It eluded his vocal chords, and the words came out in a strained pitch. "It isn't a big deal."

"Squall..." Zell grabbed his shoulders and shook him, hoping to make him snap out of it. He accomplished little more than making Squall's stomach lurch at the unwanted movement.

"Stop it," he forced Zell away and paused, before letting a big, stupid smile pull at his lips. "Seifer was right. You really do suit the name Chicken-Wuss." Zell was taken aback by the childish comment and Squall decided to follow up. "Heh, sorry... Why don't you go get another drink or something? Have some fun with us and quit worrying so much." _Why don't YOU quit worrying so much, Squall?_

The martial artist threw his hands up in mock surrender. "What-EVER. You don't even _sound _like you right now."

Irvine came up dropped an ashtray onto the table next to Squall. "Here ya go. I was gonna ask you earlier, since when did you start smoking, anyways?"

"Garden's best-kept secret," was the reply that escaped his mouth, and he found himself grinning at his own sarcasm. He pulled a cigarette from his pack and struggled to light it. Focussing was becoming a herculean task, even on the simplest things, eyesight scrambling but not seeing. "...She fucked me up bad, I guess," he stated as an afterthought.

"Who?" Zurie asked, an innocent question.

He didn't have time to stop the words. "The love of my life." _Rinoa, where are you why aren't you here with me I miss you I love you I want to see you I want to see Ellie why why why... _He couldn't figure out if he was upset or not. Tears were brimming in his eyes, but he couldn't stop smiling; sadness was just another welcome sensation. He let it wash over him, an unpleasant satisfaction, and he felt oddly relieved. A hand landed on his shoulder, but he didn't bother to learn who the owner was; he was just glad it was there.

The world started to move in a cadence free of time, hours moving at the pace of minutes and minutes passing like years. Squall couldn't decide what to do with himself, stuck wondering if he needed to move or stay put; getting up, pacing around the room, sitting down, shuffling... He touched everything with the eagerness of a small child, the curious child he was never able to be. The sensation made everything feel so new. All the while, his mind was on auto-pilot, a million thoughts and ideas bellowing at him, begging for his attention.

Amazing.

Everything.

Nothing.

_...Is this what twenty-five feels like to everyone else?_

He ran a hand through his hair, pulling loose bangs out of his eyes. A ragged breath fled his lungs. His body and mind had succumbed to the will of a substance in ways he never believed possible, and he was angry and he was ecstatic and he hated it and he loved it and he wanted more and he wanted it to be over with already.

He felt like he was on the edge of an epiphany.

He wasn't exactly sure.

_I'm too old to be this young._

"Squall, you look lost. You doin' alright?"

Irvine. He couldn't see him, but the voice rang distinguishable.

Zell peered over at him, wearing a thin look of concern; he couldn't imagine how awful he must have appeared, half sprawled on the floor, all sweat, the epitome of a disaster. If he could feel embarrassed at that moment, he would have, but the feeling was beyond his capacity. His sober self would have been disgusted and he tried not to think about it.

He attempted to answer Irvine, but he was having difficulty making his head go the right way. After much struggling, a question came to him, one that had been nagging at the back of his mind for months. Only now did he feel brave enough to ask it. It surfaced on his tongue tentatively. "Zell, Irvine... Do you guys think... Is everything going to be okay?"

"With what?" Zell's voice this time. No longer angry, just withdrawn.

Every emotion he ever thought he could experience—everything he wouldn't allow himself to feel before—was rising all at once, overwhelming and frightening and absolutely euphoric, a waltz for his mind, all for him. He was open, now, unafraid to bare his thoughts. No inhibitions. "I dunno... I'm just...afraid." He sank further into the carpet. "Afraid that I'll never be able to live up to the person I'm expected to be. Everyone wants me to be everything for them... What if I can't?"

"Fuck them." Irvine's answer was immediate. "Who do _you _want to be, Squall?"

_I don't know I don't know fuck I don't know anything what am I supposed to do who am I? _Panic. Then. Zero.

"Squall?"

_Commander SeeD bureaucrat son of the goddamn President of Esthar ex-knight complete fuck-up...father..._ He took in a deep breath and tried to concentrate, slow himself down, just...inhale...exhale... His thoughts flashed to...

And it felt like...

And he felt...


	7. Chapter 6: Truth

**_Author's Note:_ **_Sorry this took so long to post! I felt like this chapter warranted some extra research! Song lyrics are "Don't Panic" by Coldplay.__  
_

Also, have you checked out my playlist for this story? You should! You can find the link on my bio page.

* * *

6. Truth

He couldn't do it. Not yet. It was just too much to bear right now, and the thought of the potential consequences were sending his mind into an anxious oblivion. He was too ashamed, too disgusted with himself, and yet... His eyes went down to the half-eaten sandwich on his plate, and he silently wished he had never asked for her company in the first place.

"I'm sorry," he said, barely above a whisper.

"Squall, what is it? What could possibly bother you this much?" Quistis' voice held the sincerity and concern of a true big sister, and he felt the guilt crawl into him and make a home inside his stomach. Why did she have to care about him so goddamn much? "...Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just forget I said anything, okay? It was nothing, really." He struggled to put his walls back up in spite of everything, rediscover that shell that he had abandoned all those years ago, even if it was for nothing more than temporary comfort.

"I wish you could trust me," she said softly.

He looked up at her then. A small scowl crossed his face, and he felt ashamed of himself. _I DO trust you, it's just that... This is something different. You wouldn't understand—_

His phone buzzed on the table, bumping into his coffee cup with a light, vibrating chime. He grabbed it quickly, almost eagerly, happy for the excuse to get off topic. "Hello?"

_"Commander Leonhart?"_

He wondered when he was last called that. "Yes, what is it?"

_"Sir, we have word from patrol that they found James Grayson on the corner of 59th Avenue and Howe Boulevard," _the officer said._ "He has agreed to come to the station for questioning."_

"Alright, thank you. Trepe and I will be there shortly." He hung up the phone and looked up at Quistis, whose look had transformed from sister to SeeD in one seamless transition.

"What is it?"

"They found James," Squall informed her. "He was only a couple blocks away from the last crime scene."

* * *

They sat in silence in the white-walled interview room. Quistis thumbed through her notes while Squall observed the man sitting across from them. He was smug, almost cocky, and met Squall's gaze with a fox-like stare, like he was expecting this to happen, willing it even, and daring him to try... Squall didn't let anything show through his expression; not the fact that he was worried that he wouldn't get a confession, not the feeling those dead eyes shot into his mind, not a thing.

He thought about how to drive the story out of the man, knowing that it would take equal cunning and tact. If there was any advantage that could be derived from the situation, it was the fact that Squall knew James' kind well. Seifer had carried himself in a similar manner, and Squall had known exactly how to get under his skin. He hoped the same tactics would work with James as well.

Quistis was the first to speak. "I'm Quistis Trepe and this is my partner, Commander Leonhart. We are from SeeD. We have a few questions to ask you regarding a girlfriend of yours: Leigh Ellsway."

_Twice in one night with the 'Commander' thing? Hell, that's a new record for the season. _Squall sneered inwardly at the notion of being anything like his former self. He imagined that Quistis had to force herself to address him with his formal title, though no cringe could be heard in her even tone. He knew why she had said it, though; she wanted to set a precedent in hopes that James would feel some sort of intimidation from it.

_He isn't going to fall for it, Quisty. He's too smart for that._

"Am I under arrest, ma'am?" James' voice was smooth, too smooth, as if he was reading off a script. Squall wondered if the man had been anticipating this moment for quite some time, and if he had been practicing his lines in preparation for his grand performance.

"No, Mr. Grayson, you are not under arrest," Quistis acknowledged. She revelled at the use of his last name, given how he had likened himself to Hyne and had seemed to reject it with his peers. "However, we would like to get a statement from you so that we can get to the bottom of what happened to Miss Ellsway between Sunday night and Monday morning."

Squall pulled out his cigarettes and offered James one. James accepted, flashing him a liar's smile camouflaged in gratitude. Squall silently lit it for him before lighting another for himself. It was a dance of wits; the display of generosity, the easing of tensions, poker faces betraying nothing, all in hopes of finding the answers that they so desperately sought.

James took a drag off his smoke. "Well, ma'am, I'm not quite sure what to tell you. I honestly didn't see Leigh at all last week. She texted me a few times, but really, there was nothing more than that. Sunday night, I was at home with my parents. I didn't leave the house again until Monday evening."

Squall wrote down the words in his notebook, discerning the particular discrepancies between his story, what his mother had said, and Nima York's suspicions. He let the man continue, taking care not to let his hand show; this was his game, now. He knew for a fact that James had not been at his parents' house at the time in question—his own mother had confirmed that earlier that day. Squall took a long, slow pull on his cigarette, fighting off the small smirk that was threatening to pull on the corners of his mouth.

"Are you sure about that, Mr. Grayson?" Quistis gazed into James' grey eyes, searching for the truth that he had buried underneath the fabric of his lies. But there was—

_Nothing..._

—but a blank stare forcing itself back at her with equal resolve. She looked down at her notebook for a moment, drawing in a deep breath of the stale, nicotine stained air. James was cold, showing no emotion, no remorse for the lost life of a supposed girlfriend.

"I have nothing to hide, ma'am." James' face contorted into a partly sympathetic, mostly shrewd expression, the look of unwarranted satisfaction creeping up underneath his facade. "I'm sorry about Leigh. I really am. I wish I could be of more help."

Squall cocked an eyebrow as he finished his cigarette. Gingerly, he put it in the ashtray before adjusting his glasses to eye the man sitting at the other end of the table. "So, James," he said, dropping the formalities that Quistis had chosen to use, "tell me, what exactly did you do with your parents on Sunday night?"

James looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. "Nothing really out of the ordinary. I had dinner and then I played video games until I went to bed."

"Mmm-hmm." Squall leaned back in his chair. "That's interesting, because I spoke to your mother earlier and she said that you were the come and go type, and that you've been away from home for quite some time, now. Are you suggesting that she's lying to me?"

Dead eyes went wide at the notion of being snared into the accusation. Squall watched as the tiniest shudder escaped the man. He drew the cigarette down to the butt as he hesitated, trying to find the right words to back himself out of the corner he wound up in. "I'm telling the truth, sir. I didn't actually see my parents that night, because we were in different rooms but I _was_ home."

Squall couldn't help but let out a dry, cynical laugh. "The sooner you cut the bullshit, James, the better. Really."

James' breathing had sped up notably, and Squall could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He knew that he had the younger man right where he wanted, backpedalling into the unknown, an unrehearsed part of the play he had tried so desperately to memorize. Rage had slithered across James' face, and he was infuriated with them, disbelieving of the situation he found himself in... It was the first honest thing Squall had been able to decipher from the man.

"It's you guys who need to cut the bullshit!" he retorted, mask crumbling away. "Hyne knows I've done nothing wrong."

"Mr. Grayson, if you're looking to prove you're not a suspect in this, you need to stop lying to us," Quistis stated, her calm resolve fraying around the edges. "We are not here to play games."

"The only people playing games are you two," he seethed. "I was at home the whole night. What more do you want from me?"

"Saying the lie repeatedly doesn't make it the truth!" Quistis was almost yelling now. Her voice quaked as her own anger rose to the occasion. "Man up!"

"Screw you guys! I'm fucking done!" His dead eyes betrayed him, a glimmer of fiery life flashing deep below the surface of the listless grey pools. "If you want answers, maybe you should look deep into your souls and ask Hyne for them!"

Squall had to restrain himself from laughing, then; the absurdity of the statement held a certain kind of humour, coated in irony with regards to the man whose mouth it slipped out of. Asking Hyne for answers would have been no more useful than asking a wall, except that the wall was concrete and real. _Maybe I should ask the Tooth Faery, too, _he thought, smiling inwardly. He let the notion pass, deciding that it would be best not to add further insult to the already volatile man.

"James," he said, calming the air that Quistis had stirred in her vehemence, "please, just think for a moment. Things aren't exactly looking good for you. You may want to reconsider what you're saying."

"There's nothing else to say." James remained adamant about the veracity of his story. "Are you done yet?"

"You have a very important decision to make right now," Squall continued. "You're toying with your own fate, here. Think carefully." He gathered up his notes and rose from his seat, cuing for Quistis to follow suit. "We'll be back."

The two SeeDs exited the interview room without another word. Quistis shut the door behind them, letting out an exasperated sigh. James was frustrating at best; their questioning had quickly eroded his cocky demeanor, giving light to the aggravated young man underneath. He held a lot of contempt, and Squall wondered if it was just at the position he was, or something else, something much bigger...

"I don't know what else to say to this guy," Quistis said. The station was quiet at that late hour, save for a few other homicide detectives working their own cases. Grabbing a drink from the water cooler, she continued, "If we push him too hard, he's gonna shut down."

"He's already shut down," Squall corrected, voice saturated with fatigue. "We have to think of a better approach before he walks out on the whole thing. I just...I'm not sure what exactly that entails right now."

He sat down in a vacant chair, exhausted. It was too late, he was too tired, too unprepared... He wished he had a way to build up a body of proof against James before he confronted him, but instead he was left with nothing but circumstantial evidence, not enough to do anything with, barely enough to even justify this questioning. His worst fear was that the man, armed with the knowledge that he had become a suspect in the case, would go into hiding following the encounter.

It was the last thing he wanted to have happen.

"He has no sense of remorse," Quistis noted. "That's the problem. In his head, he can't rationalize exactly why he needs to talk to us. If what Nima said about him is true... If he really thinks that he is aspiring to become like Hyne—god, I don't know what we can say to him."

"It's all ego. We're not on an equal playing field, as far as he's concerned." Squall rubbed his tired eyes, hoping to elicit some semblance of wakefulness from them and failing miserably. "We need to play that up. Boost him up to a point where he feels confident enough that we are worthy of his story. I can tell he's not just another criminal. This guy has some major fantasies about himself going on in his head."

He eyed the door and thought of the man behind it. His thoughts raced back to Seifer, and how delusional his rival had become under Ultimecia's influence. It had been impossible to convince him that he was anything other than a valiant knight, carrying out the will of the absolute. Every fibre of his being wanted to believe that he was doing the right thing, that he wasn't just some lapdog to the sorceress, that he meant something and was important and powerful and everything that he couldn't be while he was trapped inside of Garden.

"Well, what do you want to do?" Her voice tore him from the brief reverie. "We can't just leave him there."

Squall scoffed. "I _know_ that."

"Well...? Any ideas?"

"Dammit Quisty, I don't know." He shook his head and let out a long, slow breath, trying to steady his mind. "We don't have many options. We'll just have to do what we can."

With that, he stood and made his way back to the interview room. He put his mask back on, the guise of calm when he was anything but underneath. His eyes moved over James, who had slumped back in his chair, seemingly disinterested, a self-righteous masquerade. Squall sat back down in his seat, calmly setting his notes on the tabletop, which had been battered by frustrated detectives and irate suspects. Quistis entered behind him, having taken a few extra seconds of respite to quell her frustration and gather herself.

Once she was seated, he began again, his voice slow and steady. "So, James, are you willing to speak with us or should we stop wasting our time?"

James looked up at him with a half-smirk, half-sneer. "You SeeDs, you are so hilarious. You act like saviours of this world, but the reality is you're the ones who are destroying it. What purpose do you serve? Chasing petty criminals in the absence of a sorceress; I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

"This isn't about me or my partner," Squall said, biting back the anger that had latched onto his skull. "This is about you, and it's about Leigh Ellsway. Now, are you going to cooperate or not?"

"Fuck you. This interrogation is over."

* * *

Squall slammed the door behind him, shaking the photos on the walls as he stormed back into his townhouse. He tore his shoes off and threw them into the closet, emotions boiling over to the point where he couldn't think anymore. The interview had been nothing short of a disaster; James' cocky, stubborn attitude had gotten under his skin like an itch that he couldn't scratch, a tick that was parasitic in nature.

He didn't get anything from the interview, not a DNA sample, not a word about Leigh...a confession wasn't even a remote possibility. He felt the anxiety wash over him as the question repeated itself in his mind.

_Now what?_

Walking into the kitchen, he glanced at the clock on the wall. It was now 03:16—far later than he had wanted to stay up—but all of his tiredness had dissipated, leaving only resentment in its wake. He was angry at James for his arrogance, angry at Quistis for letting her temper slip, angry at himself for fucking everything up... He wondered how he had ever managed to be successful in the past; he felt like a complete letdown, now, unable to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. Maybe he was past his prime? He certainly felt like he was. This assignment wasn't supposed to be difficult, it wasn't supposed to go on this long, and yet, here he was, seven months and ten victims later, murders now tallying fifteen with no end in sight.

He opened the cabinet above the refrigerator, revealing a well stocked selection of liquor, a calling from days past that he couldn't quite seem to surrender. He grabbed a bottle of vodka and retrieved a glass, pouring himself a shot. The raucous, bitter taste shocked his tongue before descending into the pit of his stomach, and he tried desperately to fight off a grimace. Not a moment had passed before he took another shot, the second one going down easier than the first, and stuttering his fury and replacing it with a dull sensation of discontent.

_This isn't going to fix anything._

He took the bottle out into the living room and turned the TV on before throwing himself back onto the sofa. An infomercial flashed across his screen, the overly upbeat voice of a woman drilling into his head with a shrill fervour that made him want to pull his hair out. He quickly turned the offending appliance off again and let out a groan. He was at his breaking point; this day had been too much, from the meeting with James' mother, to the text from Rinoa, to the phone call from his father, to the flood of damning memories, to the emotional encounter with Quistis and failure of an interview that followed...

_You are SUCH a fuck up. Really. _He took another swallow of the vodka, forgoing a glass and drinking right from the bottle, not caring how dismal he looked. All he wanted was to numb out his thoughts enough so that he could fall asleep and not have to fight with himself for the rest of the night.

It was too quiet, and his mind was starting to get away from him, plunging from one regret to the next with the ferocity of a lion stalking its prey. He needed to drown it out, and the alcohol wasn't enough. He walked over to his computer, which was situated in the corner of the room, and awoke it from its sleep. The monitor came to life, the glare assaulting his retinas against the dim lighting. He opened the music player and mulled over his library.

Music had not held much meaning for him until recent years. Before that, it had felt extraneous, serving no real practical purpose to him. He had often wondered why people loved it so much, because it was nothing more than a mathematical arrangement of sound and rhythm, compiled and composed into segments and labelled. He felt ashamed to admit it now, but it was only after that first night Irvine dragged him out to Deling that he truly understood the messages music could carry. The raw onslaught of emotions the girl in that song conveyed to him as he felt his body lose itself to the ecstasy...they were burned into his mind forever.

He landed on a song that had always managed to calm his core, a soothing melody that he could only fault for being too short. The guitar came in first, soft but not slow, pushing the melody forward subtly as the vocals started up. _"Bones sinking like stones, all that we fought for... Homes, places we've grown, all of us are done for..." _The composition echoed with a rich ambiance and he felt himself grow lighter, the weight of the day melting with the sound. He closed his eyes for a moment and let the song sweep away his stress.

He continued to sip on his vodka and let the alcohol create a fog in his mind, shushing the insistent voice in his head that wanted to make sure he knew what a disappointment he was. It was nice to finally hear nothing but music and the faint sounds of the city outside his window. This was all he wanted, and he didn't care that it was considered pathetic and maybe even a bit depressing to drink alone on a weeknight.

His eyes fell on a picture of him giving Ellie and piggyback ride, and he couldn't shake the wayward smile that painted his expression. Selphie had taken the photo—_maybe a year ago, now?—_as a part of her exploration with all things artistic. That was the first weekend he had taken Ellie back to Garden to visit his friends there. She had looked so cute that day, a dandelion resting behind her ear, pale blue eyes alive with wonder, raven hair pulled wildly in every direction by the warm Balamb wind. If there was any highlight to this week, it was the fact that, despite the circumstances, he would be able to see her a day early.

After a few more songs and several more drinks passed, he finally felt the tiredness creeping back into him. He turned off the computer and went to the kitchen to put the bottle back into the cabinet, feeling the warm and numbing buzz pull him away. A yawn escaped him as he made his way into his bedroom and undressed down to his boxers. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he couldn't help but sigh. His body had lost its sharpness, becoming slightly gaunt in lieu of physical training. His gunblade sat against the wall, locked in its case and virtually untouched for months.

He shook his head, unimpressed but too tired to care, crawling into his empty bed—_alone again—_and falling into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

"Daaaaaadyyyyyyyy!"

Squall couldn't help but smile as Ellie ran toward him, jumping and grabbing onto his legs. He knelt down to pick her up and planted a quick kiss on her cheek, which in turn drew out a tiny laugh. "Hello, Ellie," he said. "How are you doing?"

"Good! I missed you!"

"I missed you too," he told her and felt her pull closer to him. He returned the hug with equal eagerness. Ever since Rinoa had taken Ellie with her to Deling, Squall had vowed to never take the moments he had with his daughter for granted. She was the one thing in his life that he considered precious, the one thing that he would never lose. Not again.

"Hey there, Squall." A soft voice danced its way down the landing and into his ears. He looked up at that moment and saw her, and for a second he felt his heart change tempo.

Rinoa looked at herself in the hallway mirror as she put her earrings in, raven hair cascading down her back in loose mermaid curls. She wore a simple black dress that draped across her porcelain frame and accentuated her newfound curves, her figure no longer that of a teenager but rather of a woman, beautiful and stunning and completely perfect in his eyes. Even the way she moved conveyed the look of someone with confidence and poise.

"Thanks for taking her tonight," she told him. "We really appreciate it."

Her words crashed over his ears like waves crashing on the shore and suddenly his mind was brought back to exactly _why _he was taking Ellie a day earlier than usual. The very thought made his heart sink like a stone, down to the bottom of the sea that was their relationship, or what was left of it. He knew he had no right to feel the way he did; he had seven years worth of chances and he fucked up every one of them.

"No problem," he managed. He forced a wan smile, empty and false, as he tried to mask his disappointment.

Rinoa spun to face him and struck a small pose. "So? How do I look?" she asked, trying to refrain from giggling.

_Amazing. _"Good."

"Good, huh?" Her soft pink lips smiled at him. "Well, I'll take what I can get, considering it's coming from you."

He put Ellie down and quietly told her to get her things. She nodded and ran off towards her bedroom, little feet thundering on the hardwood floors and down the hallway with all the enthusiasm she could muster. "She's just like you," he said in a half-mutter. "Full of energy."

"Yes, I suppose she is sometimes," Rinoa agreed. "But sometimes, she's a lot like you. You know, when she gets in a cranky mood." He raised an eyebrow at her and she couldn't help but laugh, a deep and hearty laugh that warmed up the entire room. "I'm kidding. Seriously, though, the other day, she was practicing writing out the alphabet with the most meticulous detail I've ever seen. I thought she was gonna break her crayon in half, she was holding it so tightly. I asked her why she was writing it so carefully and she told me it was because she wanted to do a good job so she could become _really_ smart just like Daddy."

Squall tried to adjust his glasses in an attempt to hide the blush that was threatening to rise. Rinoa saw right through it, though, and swatted at him in mockingly. Quickly, he withdrew his hands from his face and saw her smile as she took in the sight of his flushed cheeks. "Uh...," he stammered awkwardly, trying to grasp for words, but they wouldn't come, and he managed only to worsen his situation.

"God Squall, it's alright," she said. "Learn to take a compliment!"

He half-grinned in response, feeling some small relief as he heard Ellie come running back down the hall. "Daddy, I got my backpack and my coat on and I even tied my own shoes!" She beamed at him, hoping that he would be proud of her accomplishments. He looked down at her feet and noticed that while she had managed to correctly tie her laces, the shoes were on backwards.

He was about to point out her mistake when he caught a glimpse of Rinoa, urging him to push the thought to the side. He hadn't realized how strongly Ellie wanted and valued his approval, and he hoped that he hadn't inadvertently put too much pressure on her. The last thing he wanted was for her to grow up feeling like she wasn't good enough for him; he didn't want her childhood to emulate his own. "Good job, Ellie," he told her. "Are you ready to go?"

Ellie nodded. Rinoa knelt down and gave her a kiss. "Be good for Dad, okay? I will see you very soon!" Her gaze turned to him. "See you Sunday?"

"Yup," he said curtly before taking Ellie's hand in his own. "I'll drop her off after dinner, as usual."

"Thanks." Her attention moved back to Ellie, as she said the words he knew were no longer intended for him. "Love you."

"Love you, Mommy!" the girl's sing-song voice chimed out.

Squall led his daughter carefully down the concrete steps out into the cool evening air, back to his car which was parked across the street. He looked up momentarily to see a man with a bundle of flowers standing at the sidewalk. He was tall—maybe half a foot taller than Squall—and slender but not at all skinny, well dressed, gelled hair, clean shaven, the smell of expensive cologne wafting off him. Squall's head started reeling, and he wasn't sure if it was the perfume in the air or simply the idea of this man—_dating my Rinoa, _he thought traitorously, and immediately chastised himself—that caused it.

"Hey, you must be Squall," he said and extended a hand, plastic smile painted across his face. "Name's Aeron. Nice to meet you."

Squall stared at the man's hand before simply nodding in acknowledgement. _This _was his replacement, some walking mass of potpourri with a faux hawk? He noted that the man didn't even get the right flowers; Rinoa liked white calla lilies, not roses. Even still, Aeron had a strangely manufactured flawlessness to him that made Squall feel incredibly insecure. He felt a twinge of anxiety building up under his skin. His mind was racing as fast as his heart as the anxiety turned into envy and began to simmer.

Ellie piped up in all her childlike innocence and exclaimed a cheerful "Hi Aeron!" and brought her father tumbling back into reality.

"Hello, little missy!" Aeron reached down and messed up Ellie's hair, eliciting a wild giggle from the girl. "Is your mom inside?"

"Yessir!"

"Alright, then, I better not keep her waiting," he said. "Have fun with your dad!"

"I will!"

Squall's blood pressure rose at the interaction between the man and his daughter, an instant dislike growing on his mind like a tumour. Something about Aeron wasn't—couldn't be—right. He was too suave, too composed, too well put-together, too...something. Maybe it was the fact that their brief encounter had effectively reminded Squall about all his own failings and inadequacies, and all at once, his mind started screaming at him _you smell like an ashtray, you can't see a fucking thing without your glasses, you can't maintain a relationship with anyone for shit, you look like a train wreck, you're way too short, you're in shit at work... _He tried to push the thoughts aside as he buckled Ellie into her carseat, but they kept coming back like ocean waves, persistent and deafening.

"Are you alright, Daddy?"


	8. Chapter 7: Respite

**_Author's Note:_ **_Ack, a month between chapters. Well, I did post a one-shot in the meantime, so it wasn't like I was completely off with my writing. Anyhoo, read on! And thank you Dr. Seuss for letting me borrow a couple words.  
_

* * *

7. Respite

Lights rushed past as he drove through the cold November evening, the ride home silent save for the steady rumble of tires on the street. The city was reawakening to the Thursday nightlife that happened upon its posh neighbourhoods, people gracing the sidewalks in a twisted dance of emotions, full of excitement and enthrallment. Once upon a time, he would have yearned to be a part of it all, but that was in the past, and now he was here, partnered only with his own shortcomings.

He pulled into the parking lot of his complex, letting out a small sigh before stepping out to get Ellie from the back seat. She looked up at him with honest eyes, full of worry for all the things she didn't understand. The sincerity in her expression was what hurt the most—he felt like a burden to a four-year-old, a new low. She stood silently beside him as he grabbed her backpack, and a part of him couldn't help but dislike the quiet. It wasn't right, he was supposed to be happy, she wasn't meant to worry about him, he was her father, he needed to be stronger than this...

"Let's get you inside. It's cold out here," he said, breath visible in the crisp air. She nodded and they made their way to the front door of his townhouse. He handed her the backpack, ushering her into the warmth. "I'll be in soon. I'm going to have a smoke, okay?"

She stuck out her tongue and made a disgusted face. "Ew! Mommy says she thinks you're gross when you do that!"

_I think it's gross that your mother is going out with that faux-hawked ass, _he thought snidely, and bit his tongue to keep the words in check. "Never mind, Ellie. Go inside. I'll be there in a second, okay?"

He sat on the doorstep and lit up a cigarette, nerves coming to a crescendo as he gazed up at the sky. The glow of the city overpowered the stars as clouds wrapped listlessly around the half-moon. A light breeze pulled through the air, and he tightened his coat around him as not to surrender any more body heat. His street was hushed and empty, only a few stray cars passing by, despite being just a short distance from Deling's vibrant Gastowne district.

If not for Ellie, he might have headed out into the fray for the night in hopes of clearing his head. Thoughts of Rinoa with another man assaulted his senses and made him nauseous, uncomfortable, angry. What pained him the most, however, was not that she _could_ date a man who was better than him, but rather, the fact that she _was _dating a man who was better than him. Old wounds felt fresh again as a million "if onlys" rushed through his mind, rising like mercury. He took a long pull on his cigarette and tried to let the nicotine abbreviate his disquiet.

...But something in his head could hear that man, voice smooth like satin, captivating, and Rinoa's infectious laughter, and Ellie saying "Hi Aeron", and he could feel himself evaporate from their lives as if he were never there to begin with, and in his heart, he knew he didn't deserve them anyways—

Finishing his smoke, he put the butt into an ashtray on the side of the step before retreating back into his home. He crossed the landing, making his way into the living room where Ellie sat on the sofa, patiently waiting for his arrival. He slumped down beside her and let out an exasperated breath, mental exhaustion catching up with him. He felt suddenly and acutely aware of how drained he was, the absolute sum of a week he'd rather forget. All he wanted was a brief respite, a means of escaping the demons that cut through his emotions until they bled.

"You look sleepy, Daddy," Ellie observed. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He looked down at her; she was wearing a look of genuine concern for him, apprehension engrained in her small features. Forcing a small grin, he tried to mask his unease with empty assurances. "I'm fine. I just had a really long week at work, and it's made me a bit tired. Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Okay..." She looked unconvinced, but said nothing more on the subject.

Silence filled the air. Usually, he wouldn't have minded—he might have even welcomed it—but coming from his daughter, it felt uncomfortable, and even a little strained. He felt compelled to break it.

"Your grandfather is coming to visit next weekend," he said, hoping to stir something—anything—in her. "He is very excited to see you."

She perked up. "Grandpa Laguna?"

"Yes, Grandpa Laguna." A part of him didn't like addressing his father like that; it felt like acceptance, and he still wasn't quite sure he could do that, even now. "He wants to know what we should all do while he is here, so we'll have to come up with something that's fun."

Another hush washed over them. She hadn't asked if she could turn on the television, nor did she request anything else to entertain herself with. Something was troubling her, but what exactly it was, he couldn't quite identify. He wished there was a SeeD code he could refer to for situations like these, but Garden didn't teach its cadets how to raise children.

The very idea that she was a part of him, his own flesh and blood, was still a strange concept that he couldn't quite grasp... She was an impossibly foreign entity to him at times, and yet, so familiar. And here she was, quiet and reserved like he'd never seen her before, a thick barrier of silence settled between them. Tentatively, he tried out words in his head, hoping to think of a way to find out what had her so disconnected, so...

_So much like me._

And then he realized that the only way to find out was to simply ask.

"Ellie, are you alright?"

She made a pensive look, the same look that Rinoa made when she was contemplating how to say something he didn't want to hear.

"Daddy," she began, drawing out the word slightly longer than normal, "why don't you and Mommy love each other? In pre-school, the other kids' mommies and daddies are married and love each other. I want you and Mommy to be together, too. Why does she want to be with Aeron instead of you? Is it because of me?"

Squall's heart sank in that moment and he suddenly felt guilt crash over him like a tidal wave. Did his actions and anxieties make her feel this way, like she was the reason he and Rinoa had fallen apart? He felt mortified at the idea. Pulling her close to him, he looked her directly in those pale eyes that said all the things she didn't have words for. When his voice came out, it was soft, barely above a whisper. "Ellie, you know that I love you, right? More than anyone else."

She nodded.

"And Mom loves you, too."

She nodded again.

"Well, sometimes, things don't work out between moms and dads, and they end up fighting and unhappy with each other," he spoke slowly and clearly so that she could fully absorb what he was saying. "Sometimes, moms and dads have to separate because it's better than staying together and being angry all the time. And I'm sure you don't want to be stuck in a place where everyone is angry all the time, do you?"

She shook her head. "...No."

"I made big mistakes that made Mom really mad at me, and she decided that it would be better if she didn't stay with me anymore." His throat became strained and his tongue felt resistant as he forced himself to continue. "Don't ever think that Mom and I are not together because of you, because that's not even close to the truth. We are just two different people who want different things, but we both love you more than anything, and that's what really matters, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy," she said softly. "So, does that mean you're happy?"

He sighed. She was unabashed and honest, completely unaware of the weight of her question as it sat heavy in the room. He closed his eyes for a moment and offered her a pallid smile. "Of course I am," he said, "I have you, don't I?"

* * *

_Rinoa placed a hand over her ever-growing abdomen, smiling as she felt the slight movements of the baby. It was so foreign, the feeling of another living human being inside of her. She was thirty-two weeks in, now, anticipation rising as her due date drew ever nearer. Over and over, she told him about how excited she was for this baby to come into the world, expressing all of her hopes and aspirations for the child, and all of her curiosities, too. What would its favourite colour be? Favourite food? Hobbies? Talents? Would it have big dreams, goals for its life? _

_Squall wanted to share in her excitement, he truly did, but the only thing he could feel was fear. He hadn't intended to get Rinoa pregnant; they weren't even married, and he certainly was not ready for fatherhood. What if he was a terrible parent? What if the child didn't like him, or resented him, like he did with his own father? His worries overrode any sort of enthusiasm he could muster up, and he felt terrible for it._

_Rinoa had told him time and again not to panic, that everything would be fine and that he'd fall into the role naturally, but no matter what she said, she couldn't quell his doubts. Regardless, he hoped she was right, and that by the time the baby was born, his fears would dissipate. _

_"I've been thinking about names again," she said._

_"Oh?" came his reply. They had spoken occasionally about what to call the child, but neither could land on a name that they both loved. It didn't help that they had chosen to leave the gender as a surprise, forcing them to double up on ideas. The only thing that they had agreed on was the order of the last names. Heartilly-Leonhart was less redundant sounding than Leonhart-Heartilly, splitting up the "hart" and "heart". Selphie had the idea of combining their surnames to be Leonhartilly, but it was quickly dismissed. He put his arm around her and felt her body lean into his own. "What have you come up with?"_

_"Okay, well, I was thinking about using my mother's middle name, Elizabeth, if it's a girl, or maybe Graham if it's a boy." She looked into his eyes for signs of approval. "What do you think?"_

_He was quiet for a moment, trying out the names in his head. Graham Heartilly-Leonhart... It was alright, he supposed, but Elizabeth Heartilly-Leonhart sounded a little too brusque for his tastes. "I don't mind Graham for a boy," he concluded, before adding, "but I'm not too sure about Elizabeth, no offense. It sounds a little harsh, or classic, or...I dunno."_

_"Hm, I guess so." She let out a small sigh._

_The air between them was tense; it had been that way for the better part of the last year, it seemed. The love that had been so present in their earlier years was missing, and all that was left was vacuous space and memories of better times. Feeling her inside of his grasp would have normally come as a comfort to him, but now it felt like an empty gesture, one of necessity built on the pillars of their expectations. It made the idea of having a child even more daunting. _

_"Even still...," she continued, looking over to him with large brown eyes and a vacant smile. "I would like some part of my mother's name to be in there."_

_He nodded. It was so hard to plan out the future with someone who didn't want to spend it with him. It was the elephant in the room, unspoken, and he was painfully aware of it. The way she shied away from him in public, the way she'd look right through him when they made love, the way she spoke with him, like he was a stranger and not her knight... Their bond was breaking, and he could feel it, every rip in the seam._

_"My mother's middle name was Alexandria," he heard himself saying, if for no other reason than to fill the void._

_"Sounds too much like the GF," she replied, her voice carrying a blunt tone that sounded strange on her. "We'd constantly be correcting people on the origins of her name. It would get really tedious."_

_"Yeah, I guess you're right."_

_More silence. Squall had liked the name Alexandria, but he could see her point; perhaps it wasn't appropriate. His mind starting playing around with the names, in the same manner Selphie would have, mixing the two together in odd combinations. _Alexandreth? That sounds dreadful, _he thought, scowling._ Elizabia? Ridiculous. Alebeth? No, what are you thinking?

_"Ellandria," he blurted. "Ellandria Heartilly-Leonhart."_

_"Huh, Ellandria?" Rinoa perked up. "I kinda like that. It's like the best of both worlds, with a bit of your sister's name in there too. Ellandria..." The name sounded like music rolling off Rinoa's tongue. "Ellie for short."_

_The faintest grin appeared on his lips as he found himself repeating the name._

_"Ellie..."_

* * *

Squall tucked Ellie into her bed, in the room he had reserved just for her. It was a stark contrast from the rest of the townhouse, which was coloured in neutrals with all black furnishings. Ensuring that the small space felt like her own, he had gone to great lengths to decorate it despite how much it differed from his own tastes. The walls were painted a cheery yellow and adorned with paintings of chocobos and moombas that Selphie had made for her as a baby shower gift. Books and toys sat tucked away on shelves he had purchased from a garage sale and painted bright pink, marking his only artistic endeavour since his disastrous attempt at drawing years ago.

Ellie's tired eyes struggled to stay open as he read to her an eccentric story about the vastness of imagination. It had been one of his favourite tales as a child, but ironically, its message had become all but lost on him as he grew older and more jaded, the teachings of Garden taking its place in his head.

"'Think left, think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try'," he narrated the final line, watching out of the corner of his eye as she dozed away into slumber for the night.

He hoped that Ellie would never lose her sense of wonder and imagination like he had. The world could be an amazing place if she wanted it to be, and he wanted so much more for her than his grey life. She didn't need to enrol in Garden, or even worse, become a SeeD. She was too innocent, too perfect to be tainted by battle tactics and para-magic studies and guardian forces and all that training, day-in, day-out. The very thought of it made him ill.

He never knew he could become so comfortable with someone that he had so greatly feared. He remembered when Rinoa had first told him that she was pregnant, and how frightened he had felt at the time. He couldn't imagine his life without Ellie now, and didn't want to. She gave him purpose and reason where everything else had failed. Shutting the book, he kissed her on the forehead before retreating to the living room.

He slunk back onto the couch and closed his eyes. Now that Ellie had fallen asleep, he was left with only himself and his maddening thoughts. He morbidly pictured Rinoa and Aeron together on whatever type of date they were having and grimaced. He had never considered himself to be the possessive type, but he couldn't help the rising jealousy he felt towards the too-suave man.

_I'm gonna drive myself fucking crazy if I keep worrying about it, _he told himself. _Just. Stop. Thinking._

His brain shut off for a total of two and a half seconds.

_This would probably be a lot easier to deal with if I had a girlfriend. _He stopped to replay the words in his head again, and groaned. _Because dating is definitely my forté. Who wouldn't want a self-loathing mess to call their own? Ladies, come hither..._

He glanced toward the kitchen and considered diving into his liquor cabinet again. It would be so easy to just let the alcohol do its magic and drown himself out. There was still a quarter left of that bottle of vodka that had his name written all over it; or maybe he would dip into the gin and mix it up with some tonic water; or there was that rum...

_...And then if Ellie wakes up and sees you drinking like the pathetic moron you are? Yeah, that's smart. _His eyes traced a path from the kitchen to his computer, and to the pile of notes that cluttered his desk. The casework was calling him, begging for the attention he did not have. There was so much left to do: write a report on the interview, follow up with the family, strategize their next move, canvas for more witnesses, and interview more of Leigh's friends, just to start.

He got no further than having a stare-off with the corner of the room. He memorized how the tungsten light from his lamp splashed over the dark grey-brown walls, the shape of the small crack that ran along the seam, the lines etched into the crown mouldings, the way his desk sank approximately three millimeters into the carpet...

Procrastination never used to be a part of his vocabulary, but now it felt like it was all he could do to keep himself from becoming overwhelmed to the point of being checked into an asylum. The dissonance that echoed through him was certainly testing the limits of his sanity, even though it was rooted in petty insecurities. In the back of his head, he _knew _that the victims' families deserved better than this, that their problems greatly outweighed his own, and that he owed them an answer. But that knowledge didn't leave the back of his head, allowing room for his own personal issues to take centre stage.

_If I could just not be crazy about Rinoa from now on, all of my problems would be solved. _He let the thought sink in for a moment. _Wow, that sounded completely pitiful._

_She wants—no, deserves—someone better than me. The sooner I accept that, the better... Well, if she considers loads of hair gel and a whole bottle of cologne better, that's her problem. _He set his glasses on the coffee table and pinched the bridge of his nose to ward of the headache that was trying to make its presence felt. When he opened his eyes to a blur where his living room should have been, he couldn't help but groan again. _Well, at least he isn't fucking blind. That probably counts for something._

He blamed his apathy on his sobriety, and he found it increasingly difficult to ignore the beck and call of his aforementioned liquor cabinet. Drinking the feeling away would have been a lot easier than digging down to the root of the problem: himself. A strained glance at his watch told him it was only 20:17, but all he wanted was to drift away for the night, if for nothing more than to shut his thoughts off for a few precious hours. He let an exasperated sigh escape him as he turned to lay on his side with his face ungracefully half-shoved into the back of the sofa, hoping to will himself to sleep.

* * *

The sun shone brightly, its warmth intangible in the cold late autumn air. December was just around the corner, and as Ellie had oh-so-subtly reminded him, that meant Christmas was drawing near. The holidays were complicated for Squall, and while his daughter took much delight the celebrations, it was a pain to try and organize. Who got Ellie on the twenty-fifth? Was his family coming to Deling or did they have to fly out to Esthar? What about New Year's Eve? If it was just him, he would've written it all off and spent the holidays alone, but that wasn't the case, and he wasn't ready to rob her of a pivotal part of her childhood just to fulfill his own selfish wants.

Quistis had joined them as they walked through Gastowne, which possessed all the hustle and bustle of a Friday afternoon. Dark circles underlined her eyes and her hair was let down, her pantsuit traded in for black leggings and a warm jumper; the telltale signs that she was mired in her own exhaustion. Despite it all, her expression shone like relief, and he suspected that she was grateful for the chance to get her mind away from the frustration that was James Grayson.

Ellie skipped merrily a couple steps ahead of the two SeeDs, far away enough to feel free but not to escape her father's reach. Bright orange leaves littered the streets, which she excitedly kicked her feet into, sending them swirling into the air around her. Quistis chuckled lightly to herself, noting the contrast between father and daughter. Ellie was brightly dressed from head to toe, bouncing around, and loving every minute of just _being_, while Squall walked behind her, clad in black, the ever vigilant parent.

"Aunty Quisty, watch!" the little girl pleaded, before ploughing her boot through another pile of leaves. "Look how pretty they are!"

"Yes, very nice," she said, before turning her attention to Squall. A brooding look tainted his features, pronouncing the crow's feet that were starting to form in the corners of his eyes. She nudged him lightly. "Why don't you cheer up? It's a beautiful day."

"What?" He shot a glance back at her, and was met with her laughter.

Quistis had to calm herself before continuing, "You're thinking too much. If anyone should know, it's me. Why not enjoy the moment for once?"

Squall shook his head. "Can't turn my brain off, I guess."

"Typical."

"What about you?" His question took her by surprise. "Surely you must be somewhat shaken by what happened the other night?"

"'Somewhat shaken' doesn't even scratch the surface," she conceded. "I wish we had gotten more time to prepare. That was a disaster."

He dug around in his coat pocket for his cigarettes. "As far as James goes, I don't know what to do. A lie isn't enough probable cause to be even remotely useful. We can't search him, we can't tail him... Legally, we're screwed. But," he paused to light his smoke, "I don't wanna wait for another girl to fall victim, either. We'll just have to work from another angle."

"You know, in a lot of ways, this is harder than any typical mission," she confessed. "When the Headmaster assigned me to help you, I had thought you were getting rusty or losing your touch or something, but now I can appreciate how difficult this has really been. I mean, the evidence has been marginal at best; there isn't enough to really nail it down to a single individual."

He feigned disbelief. "You mean to say that you were doubting me?"

She smiled coyly. "Me? Never."

"Now I know you're lying." He let a small sigh escape him, and the humour was gone from the air again. "The main thing we should do right now is ask Leigh's mother to go to the media and make a public plea." He took a slow drag off his cigarette. "It hasn't really worked in the past, though, so I'm not gonna hold my breath about it."

"Yeah, I guess so," she consented. "I'll get it all arranged."

"You don't have to. I can handle it."

"Squall, please." She motioned to Ellie. "Don't waste what little time you have with her over things that others are more than capable of doing."

He was silent for a moment, eyes resting on the little girl in front of them. He was losing track of his priorities again. Ellie was supposed to come first, before the investigation, before SeeD, before himself. One of the main reasons he had lost Rinoa was because he could never put work aside for her, and the time that should have been spent with her was diverted to other matters that were, while seemingly pressing at the time, trivial in the grand scheme of things.

_"Seven long fucking years of waiting for you."_

_I won't do the same thing to you, Ellie. I promise._

She nudged him again. "Well?"

"Schedule it for tomorrow if you can," he said finally. "I want it on all the evening news broadcasts."

"Aye-aye, Commander."

"God, Quisty," he snorted and waved a dismissive hand. "It was bad enough that you called me that during the interview. Don't make a habit out of it."

"Maybe..." A smirk found its way to her lips. "Do you think you'll ever take on that role seriously again? You know, get back into doing regular missions and working deployment and tactics and all that fun stuff?"

"Don't forget bureaucracy and office politics and brown-nosing," he added sarcastically, before pausing to think. He shook his head after a moment's time. "I guess I miss the battles and the adrenaline and all that. Sometimes, anyways."

"So, yes, then?"

"I never wanted to be a SeeD forever," he said frankly. "It was just something I was gonna do until I figured out what to do with my life. I didn't wanna be here by this age... I—I think maybe I just got caught up in it, and it was kinda hard for me to envision a life where Garden didn't play a role. Maybe that's what the training is supposed to do? Make you one-dimensional?" He stopped himself and let out a dry, humourless laugh. "I don't know what I'm saying, really."

"I know exactly what you mean, though," she offered. "If you wanna know the truth, I turned down my last mission. I was supposed to be reassigned a couple months ago to lead a squad on some counter-terrorism operation in Timber. Honestly, Squall, I'm tired combat, tired of security detail, tired of running field exams...just...tired."

Squall wanted to say "you look it" but decided it would have landed him a swift kick in the shin, and he didn't want her to scuff up his jeans. Instead, he nodded in quiet understanding. She had said all the things he had felt about Garden over the last few years, and he was glad to know that he wasn't entirely alone in his sentiments.

"I don't wanna be a SeeD by the time I turn thirty." He had thought it a million times over in his head, but to actually hear himself say it aloud was a different story altogether. It sounded foreign, strange, almost taboo.

Quistis looked up at him, blue eyes brightening. "Then don't."

He smiled and felt a slight twinge of satisfaction in himself. If he was ten years younger, the idea of being anything other than a SeeD would have scared him. Over and over he had told himself that without SeeD, he would have nothing, no career, no purpose, and _then what_? It had been such a daunting thought to toy with, but now, he felt liberated in being able to believe that he could move past life with Garden. His eyes moved over Ellie again, affirming that it would be the right decision, when the time came.

"After this case is wrapped up, which is hopefully soon," he said as he finished his cigarette, "I'll probably resign. I've only had three missions since I moved: a small peacekeeping stint in Timber, security detail for my father in Esthar—which I think was more of a pity job than anything—and this investigation. Cid's too choked with me to offer me any large-scale operations, but I don't think I'd want to do them anyways."

"I see..." Quistis shrugged. "What do you think you wanna do afterwards, then? Do you have anything in mind?"

"No idea," he admitted. "But oddly enough, that doesn't really bother me anymore. I guess I'll figure it out when I get to that point." He eyed her for a moment from behind his glasses, and noticed for the briefest moment how much older she looked now, small strands what he swore looked like silver lacing through strawberry blonde, new lines tracing her smile, her frown. "...What about you? Do you think you'll ever quit?"

She shrugged. "Hopefully. It would be nice to put it all behind me and move on. I don't see it happening anytime soon, though, if I'm being honest."

"What do you think you would do afterwards?" he asked as he glanced over at her again, and was met with a playful look.

"Hm, I could tell you...," she started, "if you tell me what you were gonna say at the diner the other night."

"It was stupid." He tried to disregard the topic. "Really, don't worry about it."

"If it's so stupid then why is it still bugging you?"

_Because I was stupid. Because I made a bunch of bad choices. Because I didn't care when I should've. There are too many reasons for me to count. _There were a thousand shards of thoughts swarming through his mind, vying to get out, yet he voiced none of them. He came close the other night, but he was vulnerable then. However, he couldn't stifle that little voice in his head that was urging him to open up to her, telling him that she was his sister in everything but blood and that at the end of the day, perhaps it would not be as bad as he thought.

"I'd rather not talk about this right now."

"Talk about what, Daddy?" Ellie halted her skipping and looked up at him with big, curious eyes.

He scooped her up from where she was standing and swiftly put her on his shoulders, drawing out a peal of laughter from the girl; it was a sound he would never tire of no matter how many times he heard it.

"Nothing important, Ellie," he told her. "Nothing at all..."


	9. Chapter 8: Static

**_Author's Note:_ **_Yes, I'm alive. It'd been a hectic month and a half that had driven me away from writing (temporarily, of course). I lost my grandmother on April 3rd; she was my best friend and mentor in life and I'll miss her dearly.  
_

_On a brighter note, I'm back to writing and drawing and all that good stuff with more motivation and passion than ever. I do hope you enjoy my next chapter._

* * *

8. Static

It was almost time.

Quistis had arranged for Meredith Ellsway to make a public plea on the evening news, and he wanted—rather, needed—to watch to ensure everything went according to plan. It was 18:03 and the top stories were running, their moment just minutes away. A combination of impatience and anticipation ran through his veins, the coursing of anxious blood as he sat, waiting, mouth dry, stomach airy.

Car crash in South Deling, killing two people and injuring one other.  
Tensions rising in Timber as global summit draws closer.  
Citizens speculating over Diplomatic Ambassador Isabella Winter's competence.

_Blah, blah, blah._

_"...And now on Channel 4 News, the mother of a student who was murdered in Deling City early Monday morning is breaking her silence tonight to make a plea to the public," _the anchor stated. A photo of Leigh flashed across the screen. _"The twenty-three year old Dollet native, Leigh Ellsway, was found dead early Monday morning on the Downtown Eastside. Deling police, as well as investigators from SeeD, believe that Miss Ellsway's murder is a part of a string of homicides dating back over a year ago. _

_"The victim's mother, Meredith Ellsway, is asking the public to come forward with any information they may have regarding her daughter's murder."_

The screen moved to Meredith, who was still visibly shaken, sitting on a chair, surrounded by microphones. _"My daughter, Leigh, meant the world to me. She was going to university, she had dreams, and she was just..." _Meredith stopped to compose herself. _"She'll never get to graduate and fulfill those dreams now. Never get married. Never have kids of her own. She was just so young, too young to die... And to die this way... Whoever did this needs to be brought to justice. Please, if anyone knows anything, come forward. She might be just another person to anyone else, but to me, she was absolutely everything. She didn't deserve this."_

The camera then panned over to Quistis, decked out in her freshly pressed SeeD uniform and looking as serious as ever. _"We believe Miss Ellsway's death is just one in a series of homicides targeting young women. SeeD's Intelligence Division and the Deling Police Department do not want to see any more people falling victim to these senseless acts._

_"We are certain that there is someone out there aside from the killer or killers who has information regarding Miss Ellsway's murder. If you know anything about what happened to her, no matter how insignificant you think it may be, we urge you to come forward. We need all the help we can get in solving this case and ensuring that justice is indeed served."_

The screen moved back to the anchor, contact information for the Deling Police department displaying on a caption across the bottom._"Once again, if you have any information relating to the murder of Leigh Ellsway, you are urged to call the number below."_

Squall let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. He knew Quistis would do the job, trusted that it would be well-executed, but still... Putting a task entirely into someone else's hands just didn't come without reservation, no matter who it was. Knowing that it was over and that it went according to plan came as a great relief.

He pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He had spent the greater part of the last night writing up another report for the headmaster, and the weight of fatigue was starting to bear down on him. He dreaded sending it off, knowing that it was everything that Cid would not want to hear—another chronicling of almosts and should-have-beens, detailing all of his newest failures from Leigh's murder to present, with James playing the leading role.

A part of him hoped that the media plea would work out, and he would get the magic phone call to solve the mystery for all the serial murders. It would save him a lot of grief, and not to mention, a lot of paperwork. But he knew that hope was, if nothing else, fleeting, and that the phone call he so desperately sought would probably remain within the bounds of his dreams.

He turned off the television and let the white noise blanket the room. A brief calm overtook him as the static of the empty air filled his ears, quiet save for the sound of his own breath. His eyes moved to the window to see the last strands of sunlight clawing at the western horizon. The days were getting shorter and shorter, turning the night into an all-consuming beast with no compassion for those who found refuge in the sun.

Squall found refuge in nothing. There were only temporary escapes, distractions. His thoughts were wild animals running rampant, ravenous and unforgiving, the kings of his being. A part of him had come to terms with his lack of will to change; it was the devil he knew, and although damning, it was still slightly more comforting than the unknown.

A soft melody carried over the silence, pulling him gently back to reality. He grinned as he heard the voice merrily sing one of his favourite songs in and out of key. Quietly, he walked to Ellie's room and peeked through the doorway. She was sitting at her desk, drawing a picture with a vibrant wax crayon palette, completely oblivious to her one-parent audience.

He choked to stifle a laugh as he heard her recite her rendition of the lyrics, made up of a mish-mash of real and made-up words. Her eyes darted up to meet his and her singing stopped abruptly, her normally fair-skinned face turning a bright, blushing shade of pink.

"Daddy! You're not s'posta sneak up on me like that!" She snarled as she put her hands on her hips.

"Sorry..." He offered her an apologetic look. "I thought your singing was...cute."

"It's not cute! It's a serious song," she explained, exasperated. "You should know! You listen to it all the time!"

_Well, excuse me. _He stepped into the room and knelt down beside her. "Okay, fine, it's not cute. Will you at least show me what you're working on?"

Tentatively, she slid the piece of paper across the surface of her desk, setting it in front of him. Squall felt his grin transform into a smile as he noted all the little details Ellie had put into her artwork. The child-like, honest lines came together in a flourish of colour; a man with glasses holding the hand of a little girl, trees with amber leaves, the cobblestones below their feet, bright blue sky illuminated by a giant yellow sun.

"Is this me and you?" he asked.

"Yeah...but it isn't finished yet!" She pulled the drawing away from him and covered it up with her hands. "I still have to draw more buildings and stuff. And maybe a cat. But I haven't decided yet."

Squall ruffled her hair lightly before rising back to his feet. "Let me know when you're finished and we'll hang it up on your wall. I'm going out for a smoke."

"Okay," she agreed, "but do you _really_ have to smoke?"

"Do you _really_ have to argue with me every time I do?" he countered. "It's not exactly an easy thing to quit."

"It's still yucky."

"Whatever." He rolled his eyes at her. "You've got half an hour before you have to get ready for bed. Don't waste it worrying about me."

"Whatever, Daddy."

Squall couldn't help but laugh at the sound of the little girl using his trademark retort against him. He shrugged in defeat and exited the room, striding down the landing and out the front door. The sky was now void of daylight, and only a few stray stars had the power to outshine the manufactured glow of the city. He pulled a cigarette out of his pack and lit it with tense fingers, cursing himself inwardly for neglecting to put on a jacket before stepping out into the cold.

He shoved his hands into his pockets when his phone started vibrating insistently. An eyebrow shot up at the name that displayed across the screen, and the corners of his lips quirked slightly. "You are the last person I expected to hear from today, Kinneas," he greeted, smile evident in his voice.

_"And 'hello' to you too, Squall. What's up? Seems like forever since we hung out," _Irvine replied in his usual laid-back tenor.

"That's probably the best career move I've made in the last four years," Squall replied jokingly. "...So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

_"Right to the point, eh? You haven't changed a bit, man." _Irvine let out a small chuckle. _"Well, I actually wanted to let you know I am coming to Deling next weekend to celebrate my last birthday before I hit the dirty thirties. You know, have one last hurrah and all that jazz. You in?"_

Squall was silent for a moment, feeling his stomach drop a few inches at the idea. "...I'm not sure... You remember what happened the last time. It didn't exactly end well."

_"That's because you were an idiot last time."_

"I guess there's no arguing that point," Squall conceded, running his free hand through his hair and feeling the influx of nerves as they reacquainted themselves with his senses.

_"Besides, that was a long time ago," _Irvine stated frankly, voice dismissive as he pushed ahead._ "You were in a weird place, then—Garden may not understand, but I get it. Anyways, it's not gonna be like that again."_

"What are you thinking about doing?" Squall asked, his interest slowly taking hold. He took a quick pull off his cigarette before continuing. "I have Ellie on weekends, so whatever it is has to be child-friendly. Plus, my father is going to be coming in that weekend to attend some big world summit, so I'll have to work around that somehow... And that's assuming that I'm not drowning in work, which, if you weren't already aware, is a pretty damn big assumption."

_"Perfect. You can con the old man into babysitting," _Irvine stated simply. _"I was planning to have the gang get together again since you and Quisty did shit-nothing for your birthdays. I'm thinking dinner, drinks, crazy night out on the town, more drinks... Pretty much all the good stuff. Maybe even get you hooked up with another little hottie."_

Squall made a noise that was halfway between a dry laugh and a sigh. He took another pull off his cigarette, trying to quell the nervous feelings that were churning his insides. "Hell, Irvine, I don't know. Even if I was still into that—" _I'm not into it anymore, right?_ "—you seem to forget that while Laguna is my father, he's still the president of Esthar. He might have matters more pressing than child minding to tend to."

_"C'mon man, seriously. One look at Ellie and he won't be able to say 'no'. Grandpas are suckers like that." _The cowboy paused for a moment to re-evaluate his last sentence._ "At least, I think they are..."_

Squall smirked at Irvine's complete disregard for reality. He wondered how exactly the man could carry through life relatively unscathed with such a distorted view of other people's priorities. "You don't know. You don't have a kid. It's not like I can just dump her on someone else so that I can go out on a bender."

_"Condoms are a fantastic thing, dude. They work."_

He shook his head. "Pfft. Thanks for the advice, but I think you're a little late."

Irvine's laughter filled the speaker. _"Ah, damn. Well, anyways, you know I am going to expect you to be there; no excuses, no 'buts', and especially no anti-social 'I'm too busy, I'm above partying' bullshit. Because we both know that you've proven otherwise on more than one occasion." _

"Yeah, yeah, don't remind me." He shook his head and was thankful for the fact that Irvine couldn't see the heat rising in his face. "So, where exactly is 'there'? You know, _if _I decide to make an appearance."

_"I think you mean 'when' you decide to make an appearance. And dinner is gonna be at the Oxford Pub at 19:00 on Saturday. After that, well... It's pretty much up in the air at this point." _

"Okay, okay, I'll see what I can do," he half-surrendered. "Have you discussed this with everyone else?"

_"I've talked about it with Sefie and Zell, and they're in. I've gotta call Quisty, yet. Not sure what she will think of the whole idea."_

"Yeah, well, don't be surprised if she puts up a fight. She hasn't been out to a club before, and from what I can gather, she's pretty resistant to the idea of hanging around, quote, 'smutty women and douchebags'." He finished his cigarette and smothered it into the ashtray.

_"Fuck that. I bet if you get enough drinks into her, she'll turn into the craziest chick on the dance floor."_

Squall tried to picture a drunken Quistis sprawling precariously around a nightclub, but the idea went beyond the limits of his imagination. "I honestly can't even get a mental image of that."

_"So, I guess you'll have to come out then and witness it in person."_

"What...I don't even...," he stammered, incredulous. "...Whatever. I'll let you know if I can make it when the date gets closer."

_"Sounds good. Talk to you later."_

"Yeah, later." He put the phone back into his pocket and quickly stepped inside, suddenly aware of how cold he was. His arms had turned to gooseflesh, and his nose and ears were starting to sting from the air's bite.

He had barely made three strides before his phone started to buzz once more. An annoyed sigh escaped him as he retrieved the phone again, flicking the screen on to reveal a text message from Quistis. _"Hey, did you catch the news? Do I get the Leonhart stamp of approval?"_

_'Leonhart stamp of approval'? God, am I really that high strung? _He sat back down on the couch and thought of a quick reply. _"I saw it. You did fine."_

A few brief seconds passed before he received her response. _"Only fine? I guess I'll take what I can get. I'll let you know if I hear anything."_

For a moment, Squall debated telling Quistis about Irvine's party for the next weekend, before deciding that his warning would only put a kink in the cowboy's master plan. Try as he may, he could not picture Quistis as the so-called 'craziest chick on the dance floor'. That title, he had determined well over three years ago, belonged to another woman already.

He wondered what Zurie was up to after all the years that had passed. Since the brief period he spent with—or at least around—the bizarre young woman, he had not seen or heard from her, although he couldn't say that he was at all surprised. She had opened his eyes to a whole underground world, one whose very existence he hadn't even been aware of before. The only thing he could truly remember about that time was how muddled his priorities had been back then. Everything else was a fast-paced haze.

A beautiful haze.

A secret want.

* * *

He was trapped.

He tried to run, tried to scream, tried to do something—_anything_—to escape. His breathing sped up to a painful, laboured pace that fell somewhere between gasping and total suffocation. His eyes strained for focus that would not come, the world around him agonizingly bright, a vague guise that served only to dizzy him. Laughter ripped across the atmosphere, comforting and terrifying and familiar all at once, and for a moment, he wondered if he was dying.

A dark shadow cut through the light. The world started to distort with each step it took, rippling outward, feral and violent. Again, he tried to call out, but his throat went raw and the sound was vacant. His mind was racing, panic and adrenaline coursing through his uncooperative body; what to do, what to do, what to do...

_"Don't be afraid, Squall."_

That voice. It belonged to...

_...Who?_

The shadow took form, slender curves, fair skin, gentle. He felt a light breeze kiss his skin, and as suddenly as the terror instilled itself, it was gone, leaving only a strange sense of tranquility in its wake. He felt a lopsided smile involuntarily slither across his face as she drew closer still, until he could almost feel her against him. The air smelled like sea salt and lavender and something foreign.

_"Do you trust me?"_

_Yes._

The light surrounding him shredded into a thousand little pieces, and he felt a distinct transcendent feeling overtake him. He reached out for her hand, only to feel her fingertips slip through his grasp. Before it could register in his mind, he was falling, faster and faster through time compressed mayhem, except this time, he was not scared; this time, he felt a connection to this world, and the boundaries where self ended and the other began infinitely blurred.

An explosion broke through the sky and he could hear her laughing all around him and everything went by so fucking fast and he held onto his breath because there was nothing else to hold on to and she was there and who was she and he was overtaken by the euphoria of it all...

* * *

Squall shot up, feeling the air slam down to the bottom of his lungs as his wild eyes darted around the room. It was still dark. His fingers felt around, grasping anxiously at the covers as he slowly began to realize where he was. His skin and his sheets were soaked with sweat, blankets thrown asunder in his terror-stricken sleep. Reaching up, he pushed the matted hair from his face and slowly counted backward from ten.

He fell back down to the mattress and let out a sigh, feeling more exhausted than when he went to bed in the first place. Not often did his dreams take on such lucidity; he tried to shake the leftover panic, telling himself that it wasn't real, that he was okay, that he was in his home, in the bed he shared with no one, exactly where he was supposed to be.

His mouth was dry. He became aware of the raw feeling in his throat, and a part of him wondered if he had screamed. He remembered trying to call out, and how impossible it had felt, and—_Oh shit. Ellie..._

He summoned the will to roll out of bed, quietly striding across the floor to check on the little girl in the next room. The faint green glow of her cactaur nightlight illuminated her features enough for him to tell that she was still sound asleep. It came only as a small relief, however; there was still the pressing matter of whether or not he could find the courage to will himself back into his own slumber.

His fingers itched for a cigarette, and he decided to oblige them, going back into his room to put on a hooded sweater and an old pair of beat up sweatpants that he'd owned since he was a teenager. Grabbing his glasses and smokes from the nightstand, he made his way outside, careful to shut the door gently behind him as not to alarm his daughter.

The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees since he had last been outdoors, the ground now covered in a layer of shimmering frost that choked the grass and made the sidewalks treacherously slick. At some point, the clouds had rolled in, blotting out the moonlight and sealing away the few stars that could be seen from the city. It delivered certainty to his suspicions—this night was traitorous.

As Squall sat on the cold doorstep, he tried to decipher when exactly he had become such a slave to his vices. He felt like a rabbit digging down a hole that could never go deep enough. The more he thought about it, the more conscious he became of the fact that he had an addictive personality. Whether it was clinging to Ellone, or training until his body crumpled under its own weight, or working at his computer until his eyes burned, or smoking almost a pack a day, or his constant, desperate wanting and longing for Rinoa, his private need to feel something that could make him feel as alive as she once did...

He watched as a mixture of smoke and breath rose from his lips, making lazy shapes in the frozen air. It wasn't enough to take the edge off his mind, and for a split second, he wondered how difficult it would be to get some pot at this time of night. The idea of being stoned, to feel a step outside of himself... It was putting the world on hold, it was the temporary diminishment of dread. What did he care if it was some short-term, pitiable excuse from reality?

Squall Leonhart. Galbadian cigarettes and a full liquor cabinet. A promising career with Garden left in shambles. Passing time until he died. Where was the poetry in it all? What happened to the beauty that had been so prevalent not even ten years ago?

Burning the last of his cigarette, he retreated back into the warm comfort of his bedroom. The glowing red numbers in the corner flashed _03:19_ and told him to catch whatever sleep he could before morning came. He removed his glasses and dressed down to his boxers before crawling back into his blankets like a blind, burrowing animal. It smelled like stale sweat and the remnants of day-old deodorant.

The silence was overwhelming. It roared in his ears and all he could do was stare blankly at the ceiling. Once upon a time, he could hear Rinoa dreaming through the stillness, but that was an eternity ago, and their bond had since relinquished him of that power. He remembered when he first noticed the ability fading, how he could only sense her in fragmented pieces, then vague, fleeting impressions, and finally, static. The first time he truly felt her absence was in this bed, alone, holding hopelessly onto a pillow and hearing only the wind.

When Squall fell back to sleep, he dreamt of nothing.

* * *

It was still quiet when he woke up. The sun poured through the cracks in his blinds and alerted him to the morning that was now outside his window. He took it all in from his bed; the way the freshly risen light edged its way up the carpet, the unsettled dust that hung in the air, the sound of the furnace pushing heat through the townhouse. It was 06:24, too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep. He still felt tired. He always felt tired. The cocoon he had wrapped himself in felt more inviting than ever; if he got up now, he would be forced to surrender himself to the outside world for another day.

The longer he lay there, the more ways his body came up with to betray him. He could barely stand the filmy feeling of slept-in skin, the oily strands of dirty hair that framed his face, and the undeniable ache of his bladder telling him he had no choice but to move.

He half-staggered to his feet, legs crying in languid protest as he made his way across the cool tiles of the bathroom, and let nature run its course. He allowed himself to think about next moves—hot shower, coffee, breakfast for himself and Ellie. She wouldn't be up for at least another hour, yet.

He stripped down and stepped into the tub. The scalding water only teased him, heat running down and around his body, but never penetrating beneath the surface. He was pretty sure he hadn't felt truly warm since he left Balamb. His eyes looked for patterns in the drops that formed on the frosted glass and he felt another day—the stress and the filth—wash away from him.

Once he was finished, he made his way back to his room, stopping only to glance quickly at his phone before getting dressed. No missed calls. No messages. He hadn't been exceptionally hopeful that something would have been unearthed from the media plea the evening before, but even still, he couldn't help but feel the smallest twinge of disappointment. Someone _had to _have the information he sought. Someone _had to _make his phone ring.

He had just finished pulling his t-shirt over his head when someone _did_.


	10. Chapter 9: Lost

**_Author's Note:_ **_Another lengthy break between chapters... I suck!_

* * *

9. Lost

For a second, he thought he was hearing things. Then it came again, the distinct hum of his phone vibrating on the nightstand, begging for him to take notice. His heart started hammering against his ribs while the skeptic living inside his brain begged him not to get his hopes up. But the back of his mind kept whispering that no one else would call at such an early hour, and that maybe it was who he wanted it to be, and maybe he wouldn't have to hand in such a pitiful report to Cid on Monday morning... Maybe he would finally get some substance behind his case. His breath hitched in his throat as he picked up the phone. The words 'PRIVATE NUMBER' flashed across the screen. He answered.

"Hello?" His greeting came out eager, and he was certain that the person on the other end could hear the desperate undertones it held.

_"Good morning, Commander Leonhart. This is Detective Bellangier with Deling PD,"_ came the voice on the other end. _"I am calling to let you know that we have a woman here claiming to have information about the Ellsway case."_

"Is she credible?" The skeptic again.

_"One of our homicide detectives questioned her briefly," _the man told him._ "She knows things about the case that weren't released to the public. She wants to speak with SeeD as soon as possible. She is in homicide right now, waiting for you and Miss Trepe."_

"I will be there as soon as I can."

_"Thank you, Commander. We will see you shortly."_

He felt a strange mixture of dread and anticipation build up in his blood, the gears in his mind turning at an impossible rate. _Who _was she? _What _did she know that the public didn't? _Why _did she decide to come forward?

He finished dressing at a hurried pace, pulling on a pair of faded jeans and a black pullover. When he first started working on the case, he had tried to make an effort to wear his SeeD uniform, or business wear, but over time, his ambition for appropriate attire—and almost everything else, for that matter—had started to wear thin. Even Quistis had given up her lectures about dressing the part, resigning herself to eye rolls and the occasional loud sigh at his expense.

Plans for the morning effectively tossed out the window, Squall forced himself to consider what to do with Ellie, who was still sound asleep in her room. There was daycare, but he was not sure if he'd make it back in time to pick her up before closing. He reached for his phone again with a hesitant hand, debating how to wake up a princess without committing suicide at the same time.

He dialed.

_"What?" _Her voice was jagged and sleep stained.

"Good morning to you too, Rin," Squall greeted, and couldn't help the sheepish grin that crossed his face. He could almost picture her, dishevelled hair, eyes barely able to keep open, a frustrated mess sprawled in some contorted position across her bed.

_"Squall, what do you want? It's fucking early."_

"I need to bring Ellie back now," he replied calmly. "I have to be at the police department this morning and I can't take her with me."

_"Hyne... Okay, when are you gonna be here?"_

"Give me an hour?"

_"Seriously? It's..." _He heard her fumble around to see what time it was. _"...quarter to seven. On a Sunday."_

"Don't you think I know that? I don't exactly have a choice in the matter." He cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he picked out a coat from his closet. "If I could keep her for the day, trust me, I would."

_"I know... Just... Sorry, I had a late night. I'll see you when you get here."_

"Okay, see you soon," he replied just before hearing her hang up on the other end of the line. He tried to pull himself back into focus on what to do next, pushing down his anxiety at the notion of what a 'late night' meant.

Ellie was still sound asleep, and Squall couldn't help the guilt that crashed into him as he gently prodded her awake. Her tired eyes opened hesitantly, frowning sternly at him for interrupting her dreams. "Daddy, I'm too sleepy right now... Go 'way..." she half-groaned before a yawn fled her lungs.

"I know it's early," he told her apologetically. "I got called into work today, so I have to drop you back off at Mom's house."

Her frown turned to a look of dismay. "No... I wanna stay with you."

Squall forced a pallid smile and pushed the unkempt strands of hair out of her face. "I'm sorry, Ellie."

After a small struggle, he managed to get Ellie out of bed and ready to leave. The drive was as silent as ever as they ventured through the grey morning. He didn't want to bring her back; when she was gone, he lost his self-control, lost his will to try. A part of him wondered if it was considered pathetic to need a child more than the child needed its parent. The times they shared together were like handholds on a steep cliff; he was afraid that one day, he'd reach up and there wouldn't be anything there to keep him from falling.

The cold morning released its sharp winter fangs and pounced upon autumn, delivering its killing blow. The clouds that had survived the night sighed onto the earth, a supposed gift from the faeries. It muddied the streets with a thick, brown slush that tried to pull his car any direction but forward. Squall hated it. He longed for the Balamb heat, the smell of the ocean and the blanket of humidity, the salt air. Three winters spent in Galbadia were three too many.

As he pulled onto Rinoa's street, his felt his stomach sink. Aeron's car sat by the curb, still sitting in the same space it occupied on Thursday night, waiting for him like a migraine. He parked behind it and got Ellie out of the back seat, all while trying to silently fight off the bile that was warming the back of his throat. She did not seem to notice his disappointment, eyes barely able to keep themselves open, too tired to recognize anything more than absolute necessity.

Squall retrieved her bag and helped to walk her up the steps to Rinoa's front door, careful to maintain their footing in the fresh snow. The door swung open before he could ring the bell. Rinoa took one exhausted look at him before taking Ellie's hand in her own and ushering her inside. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, telling a thousand stories that she would not dare say aloud.

"Thanks," was all that he managed.

Rinoa shrugged. "Yeah."

It was awkward to the point of being painful, and the only consolation—albeit petty—was that Aeron himself was not in plain sight. A picture painted itself in his head, one of the too-suave fox man lying on her bed in the spot beside hers, the spot that he had forfeit years ago. He tried to cast the mental image aside, and hoped that it didn't show on his face.

He tried to think of something else to say. "Laguna will be in town next week. I...maybe I could take Ellie earlier on Friday?"

"Sure." She crossed her arms over her chest and took a step backward. "Just let me know when."

"Alright."

Squall turned his attention back to Ellie and faked another smile for her. With a tired gait, the little girl walked up to him and hugged his legs. He knelt down and took her in his arms, kissed her messy hair, and wondered if she knew exactly how much he didn't want to let her go.

* * *

He arrived at the station just as Quistis was getting out of her car. He was on his second cigarette since dropping Ellie off and considering a third before he went inside. The back of his mind kept nagging for a shot of good vodka to take away the edge that kept slicing into his psyche. His thoughts felt grainy. A small amount of relief echoed through him as he spotted her carrying two cups of coffee from one of the better cafés in Deling. Not quite vodka, but better than nothing.

"Good morning," she greeted. "Venti with cream and brown sugar, right?"

"That's right," he confirmed as he grabbed his notebook before locking up his car. He then took his cup from her and relished the feeling of warmth against his cold hands. "Thanks."

They walked into the station together, staff and officers slowly starting to filter in for the morning shift. Climbing the cold, grey stairs, they made their way up to the homicide department, to this supposed insider, the holder of key information, the interrupter of Sunday morning sleep, the one whose claims cut short visits with daughters, ripped away his handholds and let him dangle helplessly on the edge of his cliff.

A young, soft-faced detective in a department store suit came up to them with a manila folder. "Hello Commander Leonhart, Miss Trepe." He addressed them with the formalities that made Squall cringe. "I'm Detective Bellangier; I spoke with you both earlier. I've pulled up a file on the informant. Her name is Genevieve Marchand, twenty-four-years-old, lives in the Oakridge neighbourhood. She has a couple of charges for possession of a controlled substance under thirty grams and public intoxication. Nothing terribly major. She's waiting in interview room three whenever you're ready."

Quistis dutifully plucked the folder from the detective's hands and offered a word of thanks before dismissing him. She opened it up to the woman's photo as they retreated into their makeshift boardroom office. "She looks harmless enough," she commented before taking a sip of her coffee. "No real affiliations with any known drug dealers despite her charges. Her parents live in Winhill, where she grew up, moved to Deling at seventeen, did a year of a BFA at U of G and dropped out...yada, yada."

Squall took off his peacoat and threw it across one of the empty chairs before sitting himself down next to her. He adjusted his glasses and took a long, careful look at her picture. She looked young for her age, with unnaturally jet black hair and slightly plump features. A gaudy ring looped through her right nostril. "She looks like a lost girl," he mused, "and he's a fear peddler. They're a match made in burnout heaven."

Quistis laughed. "Well, aren't you in a snarky mood this morning."

"Maybe." He interrupted the smirk that was forming on his lips, taking back a large drink of coffee. "I guess I shouldn't get too presumptuous. Who knows what she has to say."

"Only one way to find out."

He nodded. "Yeah, I suppose we shouldn't keep her waiting."

They made their way into interview room three, where the girl was sitting quietly, head resting against the battered white wall. He stared at her for a moment as he sat down, her heavy, oily black hair, pale skin, makeup smeared from tears and sweat. She was at least twenty pounds lighter than her photo had depicted, making her once plump features look sharp and unfitting. The same hoop tackily adorned her bony nose. Punk rock garb and wishing for seventeen again. She smelled like jasmine and cheap beer.

"Genevieve Marchand, my name is Squall Leonhart and this is my partner, Quistis Trepe." He set his notebook down on the table. "We've been told that you have information pertinent to the Leigh Ellsway case."

She stopped biting the inside of her cheek and looked at him with a hazel gaze. "He can't know I'm here," she whispered.

Quistis perked up. "Who can't know you're here?"

She ran a trembling hand through her tar slick hair. "If he finds out, he will kill me."

Squall frowned. "Enough, Genevieve. We're not here to listen to you make vague references to some mystery man. Who is going to kill you? And why, for that matter?"

A small smile wormed across her lips, but he could find no semblance of happiness in it. A dead girl's smile. Her voice was airy and raw, like a sandstorm. "I was with James Grayson last weekend. Well, most of it, anyways."

He opened his notebook and quickly reviewed his makeshift timeline.  
_Sunday evening, Dollet, roughly 18:30—Leigh phones Meredith Ellsway after dinner, tells her mother of plans to meet friends from university.  
Sunday evening, U of G campus,19:00?—Leigh and Nima York get ready to meet friends; Leigh receives call and leaves residence without Nima.  
Sunday evening, Deling City, 19:30 to 3:45—James Grayson states that he is home during this time. Mother does not corroborate his alibi.  
Sunday night, Deling City, roughly 22:00—Leigh is murdered at this time according to autopsy; cause is asphyxiation.  
Monday morning, 1900 block of 57th Ave, Deling City, 03:46—Leigh is found dead in alley between Boko's and convenience store. Body is nude, with 'X' cut between breasts. Same as all other victims._

He took a long, slow sip of his coffee, which was becoming disappointingly lukewarm. "What did you and James do during that time?"

"I met up with him on Saturday. We got some food from a burger place downtown for dinner and then we went to one of his friends' places for a bit." She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly before continuing. "We decided we were gonna go party at District, so we got some blow from his buddy and took off. It was...a pretty crazy night. A lot of drugs. A lot of booze. We went back to his friend's place and crashed there.

"On Sunday, James got kind of weird. I dunno if he was pissed off or fucked up or hungover or what. He kept babbling about it being the time to repent or something creepy like that. I tried to get him to tell me more, but he just kept saying I wasn't ready yet."

Squall jotted down everything, pen moving at a fevered pace across the page, his handwriting getting looser with each line. "Do you have even the slightest idea why he'd say something like that?"

Genevieve shrugged. "I know he's really into Hyne. I'm not sure if he's exactly religious, though."

"What happened next?"

"We finally got some food at like, 16:00 or something. He seemed really on edge, I dunno. Something wasn't right with him; I think it had to do with the whole repenting thing, but he still refused to elaborate. We went back to my place in Oakridge and hung out for a bit longer, but he was just really distant; he wouldn't stop checking his phone. He looked at the damned thing at least once every two minutes. I guess someone must have been texting him.

"He took off in a hurry, anyways. I guess it was around 19:00? He said he had something to take care of. I passed out until I heard him knocking at around midnight. And then I saw that he...he—"

Genevieve suffocated on her words and buried her face in her knees. Squall could see her start to tremble, her meagre arms pulling her legs tighter, body curling into the fetal position, begging for a womb to keep her safe. It reminded him of Rinoa, sitting on the Ragnarok in the abyss of space, wishing for her mother's comfort that they both knew would never come. He tried to keep himself gripped on reality, pulling his chair close to the lost girl and placing an uncertain hand on her shoulder.

"What were you going to say? What happened?" His voice came out in a soft tone he didn't know he was capable of having with anyone other than Ellie.

"When he came back, he had...he had...blood...on his shirt," she choked out. "I asked him what happened. He said it was none of my concern, that the blood wasn't his. I knew that he knew the Ellsway girl; fuck, I had met her myself once...I just...I didn't think that he... It didn't add up until I saw it on the news last night..."

Her trembling had turned into full-blown sobbing, ugly cries that belonged to neither a woman nor a child. Squall wondered how many more broken people he'd have to face because of this case. Despairing fiancés, confused friends, angry fathers and weeping mothers, fucked up girls who couldn't tell the difference between friend and foe.

"He's going to kill me," she said, once, then, over and over, like a breathless mantra. "_He'sgoingtokillmehe'sgoingtokillme_."

Quistis shook her head. "He's not going to find out that you came here. We'll make sure of that. You can stay completely anonymous."

"He'll know," Genevieve said. "You need to find him before he finds me."

Squall nodded, slowly, leaning onto his forearms and searching her eyes. They weren't dead like James'; there was still a glimmer of youth burning bright from behind her misty tears. "I have to ask: why did you choose to come forward? Is there a reason other than the conviction to do the right thing?"

Wincing, she uncurled her body from its position on the chair and lifted her shirt. His mouth fell slightly agape at the sight, the purple blossoms staining her ashen skin, some big, some small, some wrapping around her curves in a traitor's caress. Some rimmed with yellow and some laced with red ribbons of battered veins.

"He did this?" Squall asked, barely a whisper.

"I kept asking him where the blood came from, what happened that night, and then two days ago, he came over and said he'd had enough." She grimaced and her over-plucked eyebrows pointed downward like sharp pins. "I...how can I let this happen to anyone else? If it is him, he has to pay for it."

"Do you know where he's at right now?" Quistis asked. Her posture was rigid, hair and makeup exactly where it should've been, the epitome of everything the lost girl was not. "He isn't staying with you, is he?"

"I think he's hiding. Running from place to place. He knows he can't stay in one spot for too long." Genevieve let her shirt fall back down and pulled her knees back up to her chest. "I'm afraid to go home."

Squall picked up his notebook again. "Do you know the addresses of the places he might be? We can send Deling PD to look for him."

She pulled out her cell phone. "I think I have a few spots saved in my GPS... Here. The first four on the list are his friends' houses."

He looked at the phone and copied the addresses onto paper.  
_4691 Kingston Boulevard_  
_3276 45th Street  
1103 19th Avenue  
2104 Robson Drive_

"Do you have his phone number in here, by any chance?" he asked, tapping the phone with the end of his pen.

"Yeah, I do," she said, picking up the phone again. He wrote the number down as she read it out to him. "241-396-5573."

Squall nodded. "Thank you. You've been a massive help."

She stared up at him again with those bright, tear kissed eyes. "You'd better come through."

* * *

Squall should have been happy. He wanted to be happy. He had finally gotten enough evidence to obtain a search warrant, had the marshals—the bloodhounds of Galbadia's police force—tracking down James, had detectives looking up phone records. Soon, the DNA results of the blood found under Leigh's fingernails would come back and he could start building a solid case against him. He'd get what he needed to put the Hyne-obsessed man behind bars and end this forsaken investigation. Everything was coming to fruition.

He couldn't stop thinking about Genevieve Marchand. The lost girl was the result of life decisions gone for worse. She reminded him of milk, how easily it could go bad, invaded by something foreign, grotesque and sour. She was curdled, an empty remnant of her past, her potential nothing but a shadow.

He lay on his couch and watched the Sunday afternoon snow surrender to gravity in some fruitless battle with the sky. A woman sang to him about passion and sincerity, her amber coloured voice accompanied by the melancholy chords of her piano and the rich hum of the cello. He pretended for a moment that he knew her, that she was an old friend; they'd talk about the follies of love and share a joint and somehow the pain wouldn't feel as sharp.

A cigarette burned lazily between his fingers. He wanted something more, but he wasn't sure exactly what. Faster, slower; heavier and harder; completely dissociative or honest and grounded... He wanted Rinoa and thirty-year-old white wine and jazz and clean, cool sheets, calla lilies and strawberry-scented shampoo. He wanted Zurie and ecstasy and trip-hop and long walks to nowhere and empathy through chemistry and watching the sun rise as he came down.

He didn't know what he wanted anymore.

* * *

_Even as the sun nestled beneath the western oceanfront, the air remained thick and hot. He was used to it, the Balamb summer, the feeling of the dry Centran wind as it mixed with the humid, tropical air. It made him feel like something wild, something that could not be tamed, something that wasn't him._

_It was his twenty-first birthday. They had decided to have a beach party outside of the ever-vigilant eye of Garden, just the six of them; a vague breath of the youth they should have been experiencing. He couldn't help but feel like it was a charade, a play where they were supposed to convey the roles of normal twenty-somethings, and pretend that they weren't hardened mercenaries with bloodstained hands and conditioned minds._

_He sat down next to Selphie at the edge of the low tide, feeling the wet sand between his fingers and toes. She offered him a small smile and continued to play her guitar, a downtempo melody that she expertly plucked with practiced fingertips. He listened to it carefully, determined it to be in the key of C-minor, with a 3/4 time signature. He understood the theory perfectly, but the purpose of it all was something else._

_She stopped playing suddenly and he looked up at her. A wink and she was retreating up to where the others were, away from the water, only to come back seconds later with two bottles and a pair of red plastic cups. "This is the good stuff, birthday boy," she announced as she poured their drinks. "It's an awesome tequila you can only get in Balamb. I premade a cocktail mix to go with it."_

_He took his cup and tried a sip of it. "It's good."_

_"No, it's great," she corrected. "But I guess you're too much of a noob to know the difference."_

_He snorted. "A 'noob'?"_

_"Yeah, a noob, like a novice or whatever you wanna call it." _

_"Oh." He took another sip of the concoction, noting the hints of citrus and grenadine as they danced on his tongue._

_A sigh escaped her. "Why aren't you hanging out with everyone else?"_

_He quirked an eyebrow. "Why aren't you?"_

_"I asked you first."_

_He was quiet for a moment as he looked back toward the others. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of riveting conversation; he could hear the sparks in Rinoa's voice, see it in her body language as she became passionate over whatever topic she was talking about. He wondered what that felt like, to feel such a connection to words. Whenever he tried to think of the right ones to choose, he usually came up with silence. Now, however, there was a question burning in his mind, one that he had been longing to find the right time to ask._

_He voiced it, awkwardly. "Do I really belong here?"_

_Selphie looked at him for a moment, her forest eyes staring into his sea. She was making him anxious, and he wondered why he had decided to ask at all. He could condition himself to endure almost anything, but this, this silence and her insistent gaze... It was unbearable._

_He was about to stand up and walk away when she spoke._

_"Maybe not."_

_It wasn't the answer he was expecting. She was supposed to be offering him empty comforts, telling him that he really did belong, that he was a part of them, that he was their friend, that they all had history together; why wouldn't he belong? And then another thought crossed his mind: if not here, then where?_

_He sighed and let his body fall onto the hard, wet sand. He felt the salt water crawl between the fibres of his t-shirt and shorts, but his eyes were cast to the clouds. They burned a ferocious shade of pink, the shade of passion and lovers; he wondered if he could blame this lost feeling on the sky._

_"I don't think I belong here, either," Selphie said, somewhat to his surprise. She took another drink of her tequila cocktail and stared out at the ocean._

_A surge of curiosity. "...Trabia?"_

_She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "More like anywhere but here."_

_"What about Irvine?"_

_"What about Rinoa?" she countered._

_"I asked you first." He smiled, rare but genuine._

_"Touché." She dug her toes deep into the sand. "I dunno. I mean, he loves me, but he also loves the game, you know? I don't think he's ready to stop playing."_

_Squall nodded and sat back up to finish his drink. Selphie took his cup and refilled it along with her own. It dawned upon him that maybe they weren't as different as he had once believed. They were the broken ones, shards swept neatly into a corner and hidden behind a gossamer veil._

_"I love her," he admitted to the clouds, "but I can't shake the feeling that I am still missing something."_

_"Then maybe you are."_

_She didn't say anything more, but he could tell that she understood. They sipped on tequila until they were drunk, returned to their friends, their lovers, played the part of twenty-one. He tried on happiness; it fit like a glove that was too small, restrictive and tight, the seams digging in all the wrong places. If Rinoa noticed, she didn't say anything._

* * *

He woke up to find himself still in the same position on the couch, unaware of how or when he had fallen asleep in the first place. The townhouse was dark, and the invasive winter cold had seeped in from outside, crawling up his arms and nesting underneath his skin. A violent shiver coursed down his spine, affirmation that he was indeed awake now, whether he wanted to be or not.

Blinking the exhaustion from his bleary eyes, he flicked on his phone. He cringed at the glare as he struggled to make out the time: 20:37, still early—too early to go to bed. He cursed under his breath and forced himself to sit up, feeling his body groan as he tried to shake the stiffness from his muscles.

An empty pack of cigarettes sat on the coffee table next to his still smoldering ashtray, laughing at him. He crumpled the box in his hand before letting his forehead fall to rest against his palm. A dull ache was starting to form between his temples, and his frustration mounted as he became painfully aware of the inertia in the room, choking out his patience.

He hated waiting. It reminded him of when the Garden first took flight, all that time spent adrift, aimlessly floating around and wondering what was going to happen next. Back then, he trained, keeping his body and mind sharp and ready for anything; an attack by the Galbadians, another internal uprising from NORG's faction, maybe even a freak accident that would cause them all to sink...

He had no desire to train anymore. He tried to pinpoint exactly when he had lost interest, when it had started to feel like a chore. Rinoa had been so bothered by it, his need to be the perfect soldier, to be the epitome of SeeD and Garden and all it stood for, and now... It didn't matter that he finally understood what she meant when she told him how much she longed for something more. By the time he had experienced the world outside of Garden, felt that insatiable longing for himself, it was too late.

The irony was a bitter pill to swallow, but he knew he had to move on, with or without her, no matter how hard it would be, no matter how much it would hurt. His mind had become focussed on one singular goal: wrap up the investigation and resign. He wouldn't allow Cid to deny him his escape next time.


	11. Chapter 10: Fathers

**_Author's Note:_** _Pretend that Swarovski exists in the FF8 world. Other than that, enjoy.  
_

* * *

10. Fathers

Squall wished he had a hobby. Something, anything, to keep himself pre-occupied and make time feel a little less stagnant. His books were well-read, some to the point of collapsed spines, his music library was growing old, and he could only handle so much television before it overstayed its welcome in his headspace.

His lack of passion was borderline disturbing.

He had handed in his report to Cid on Monday morning, to which he received an automated response that he was pretty sure he had written himself back when he worked inside of Garden's walls. He supposed he should have been grateful—it wasn't the reprimand he had been anticipating. But as Monday sunk into Tuesday without a word regarding James' whereabouts, Squall found himself caught somewhere in between self-assurance and self-doubt.

Quistis had told him to be patient, that these things took time, and that he just needed to have confidence in the marshals. _"Sometimes, it takes weeks to find suspects—even months, if necessary. Don't worry. We'll get him." _Her words had not come as a comfort, because the longer it took to find James, the longer it took to build up his evidence, and the longer it took to close the case, and the longer it took to leave SeeD and get on with his life.

Squall Leonhart fucking hated waiting. Wednesday had spiralled further and further into redundancy: reviewing evidence, checking his phone, watching TV, music, coffee, cigarette, repeating indefinitely. Only as evening broke on Thursday did that monotonous cycle end, and although he was glad for the interruption, the circumstances behind it were far less than what he would consider desirable.

He did not want to see his father.

Laguna Loire was expensive gifts and long, pointless conversations and classic rock 'n' roll, a man brimming with passion to the point where it became almost nauseating. He was a staple in the world's political landscape, and a thorn in Squall's side. He was the epitome of everything that his son was not, and he was waiting for him just beyond the revolving door, his promise to come ahead of the summit more than realized.

Squall stood outside the Hotel Republic, smoking a fresh cigarette and trying to ignore the weight of the doorman's eyes as they rested upon him. He fidgeted in a feeble display of nerves, adjusting the zipper of his hooded leather jacket, pushing his bangs out of his face, knocking the slushy brown snow from the tread of his shoes—_do my glasses have smudges on them?—_anything to fill the empty moments and give him reason not to think.

But he couldn't seem to dull out the foreboding feeling that was invading his mind, the knowledge of what was to come. Phrases like "quality time" and "father-son bonding" tasted sour on his tongue, and he cringed at the idea of what they entailed. Every synapse in his brain was firing off warning shots when his father had asked him to meet here, but for reasons that he could now only identify as weakness, he could not find the will to tell the man "no".

It was almost as if he had felt...sorry for Laguna. He wished he still had the capacity to hate him; everything would have been simpler that way. If only he could just be an orphan again, pretend he was birthed by the wind. If only Laguna Loire existed only in Estharian politics and not in his family tree.

His anxiety level was hitting an all-time high. Laguna was one of the few people in his life that was privy to some of the details of his fall from Garden's grace, and he was almost certain that the incident was bound to come up at some point. He wished that his father had remained ignorant to it all; it would have made everything so much easier to deal with. He hated talking about it, he hated reliving all the old feelings and memories, and he hated the fact that part of him would do it all over again.

He took a final drag off his smoke before tossing it to the curb, and stepped through the doorway. The posh interior was a testament to the finer things, with black marble floors and modern artwork and gold trimmed fixtures and Swarovski crystal chandeliers illuminating the lobby with expertly calculated ambiance. A guest stood by the elevator, and he was pretty sure that her suitcase alone cost more than his car.

He hated being so self-aware; the sound of his steps, loud and hollow, as he made his way to the desk, the faint smell of nicotine that embedded itself in his hair, the tiredness he couldn't disguise, and still that same fucking foreboding feeling that was now making his heart hammer uncontrollably against his ribcage. He was akin to a stain, marring this pristine setting with his ghastly presence, and he could sense that the receptionist agreed by the glint of dissatisfaction in her eyes.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked with the guise of practiced sincerity.

He met her gaze and tried to smile, albeit weakly. "I'm here to meet with President Loire."

She arched an eyebrow in a look that was laced with doubt. "...Sir, unfortunately, we are not able to allow just anybody in to meet with the President. We're under strict protocol to—"

"He is expecting me," Squall interrupted brusquely.

She sighed and picked up the phone receiver, dialing what was presumably Laguna's room number. "What is your name..._sir_?"

"Squall Leonhart. I'm his son."

Her eyes widened for a moment before her thoughts moved to the person who had answered on the other end of the line. "Hello? Yes... Sorry to bother you, sir, but I have someone here who says he's... Yes, that's right... I shall do just that... You're welcome, sir."

Squall watched as she grabbed a key card and came out from behind the desk, her kitten heels clicking loudly against the marble. Her doubtful look washed away, replaced by a pleasant, plaster cast smile. He found it slightly amusing, how she could have a complete change of heart when faced with his supposed status. He wondered how it felt, dedicating oneself to a dead-end job wrought with servitude and unnecessary ass-kissing.

"Please, sir, right this way." The receptionist made her way down the hall toward the elevators and he followed suit. She called one of the lifts and used her key to unlock the access to the top floor. "This will take you all the way up to the Presidential Suite. Please let us know if you require anything else. We'd be happy to help you."

"Thanks," Squall mumbled tersely. She stepped back out and he immediately hit the button labelled "CLOSE DOOR". Within a moment, the elevator was moving at a hurried pace, up to the thirtieth floor, and the dread tumbled upon him with more force than he would have liked to admit.

When the doors opened again, he was greeted with excess. From what he could already see, the suite was embellished with traditional, distinguished décor, from the window dressings to the antique furniture to the oil paintings that adorned the walls. It was perfectly fitting for royalty, and he had to wonder what genius thought it would be suitable for Laguna Loire.

He took a tentative step out of the elevator, walking slowly down the hall, afraid to mark the dark cherry floors with his common man shoes. A lump formed in his throat. The setting was doing nothing to help his already unbearable anxiety. A part of him wanted to turn around and run as far as he could from this place, from this high society, gold plated, crystal laden, over-the-top, affluent hell.

And then he saw him, and the option of running away was thrown right out the window. The fifty-five-year-old still managed to carry all the exuberance of a teenager, an anomaly that eluded Squall's comprehension. Squall eyed him carefully, noting the fitted grey trousers and black merino wool sweater, like something straight out of a luxury brand look book. His trademark smile disguised the jet-lagged circles under his eyes.

"Squall! Hey! You finally made it!" Laguna quickly closed the space between them. He gave Squall an exaggerated, clumsy hug that made the younger man's muscles tense.

"Hello, Laguna." He tried awkwardly to return his father's embrace, arms wrapping tentatively around the other man for a few fleeting moments before quickly returning to his sides.

"Please, have a seat," Laguna said and motioned to the sofa. "Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea? ...They gave me a forty-year-old vintage wine from Winhill—"

"—Coffee is fine, thanks," he said, and watched as Laguna nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Squall bit at the inside of his cheek as he sat down. The prospect of good wine was tempting, but the idea of drinking it with his father... He could almost hear the reprimand he'd receive once he consumed too much.

"Cream and sugar?" came Laguna's voice from the neighbouring room.

"Yes, please." Squall replied. A realization slowly dawned upon him, and he noticed that the suite was strangely void of any other people. "Where are your staffers? Didn't Kiros and Ward come with you?"

His father returned a moment later with mugs in hand, and offered one to Squall before taking a seat in the chair across from him. "Kiros will arrive this weekend, and Ward is staying back in Esthar. My staff stays in separate quarters; privacy is a rare commodity on trips like these, so I kinda have to make it happen whatever way I can." A wide grin spread across his features, and Squall noticed that the older man's smile lines looked a little more pronounced than the last time they had met. "So, how have you been? It's been awhile since I last saw you in person, eh? Are you still working away? How is that case going? Are you any closer to solving it?"

He shrunk under the weight of all the questions, eyes breaking away from Laguna's unshakable gaze and looking down to the floor. "It's going, I guess. Just a lot slower than I wanted it to."

"Ah, I see." Laguna took a slow sip of his coffee before continuing on with the—_interrogation—_conversation. "And how's Ellie doing? I can't wait to see her; we're gonna have a blast tomorrow."

"She's fine." A small smile crossed Squall's lips as he thought about his daughter. "She's just like her mother."

Laguna laughed. "She has that Heartilly charm, huh? I can't say I'm terribly surprised."

"And Heartilly attitude, and Heartilly stubbornness..."

"Oh really? Those sound more like your traits than Rinoa's."

Squall raised an eyebrow in warning. He already knew where this was going. Laguna was testing the waters, trying to gauge Squall's reactions before attempting to play parent. He would start out slow with idle chit-chat about work and Ellie. And then he would start rambling about his flight and the conversation would move to politics briefly before focussing back on Squall, and then it would _really _start, the questions about how he was doing and if his life was getting back on track and if he needed any help and the more Squall thought about it, the more he wanted to throw up in his mouth.

"So, it was a pretty good flight this time around." Right on cue. "There weren't any delays, thankfully; I was worried, considering how crappy the weather has been here."

Squall was stuck between going through the motions and staging a verbal protest against letting this supposed conversation continue. There was a reason he didn't do this shit; he hated playing games. The whole thing felt like a charade, a veil to hide the fact that they did not have the father-son relationship that they were supposed to. He tried to rationalize _why _exactly he had agreed to this in the first place; surely there was a better explanation than simply feeling sorry for Laguna.

He thought about the phone call he'd had with his father just over a week ago, and the question that still lingered in his mind, the one about how he'd been doing with "everything"... It was bothering him that it bothered him so much. He wished that he could have just blown it off as nonsensical Laguna babble, but doing so would have been denying the truth of it all. Maybe if he had just told Quistis about what had happened like he'd wanted to that night at the diner, he wouldn't have felt so on edge about it now.

One thing was certain. Laguna couldn't handle this silence. The older man swallowed nervously and tried to carry on with more small talk. "So, um, the summit is going to be happening this Tuesday... What do you think of it? Have you been following the situation at all?"

Squall hated talking politics, but decided to humour him anyway; it was better than talking about himself, but he had a feeling that he was only prolonging the inevitable. "Sort of. I have my doubts as to whether or not it will help expedite Galbadia's progress towards democracy."

"How so?"

He shrugged. "This country still has a lot of problems. The provisional government has been in place for almost a decade and yet they have made little progress. Like, what about writing up a draft constitution? What about minimizing the military's role in their administration?"

"Well, one of the problems is that they can't decide if a non-elected provisional government should write up a constitution, or if a party elected by the people should be the one to do so." Sometimes, Squall forgot that his father was well-versed in politics. Sure, he knew all too well that he was a politician, but the idea that Laguna was intelligent and knowledgeable...it was something he tended to overlook. Frequently.

"True," Squall conceded, "but without a constitution, the people have nothing to base their vote on. They don't know what values should be upheld by their elected representatives because there aren't any in place."

"Fair enough. It is a touchy subject, for sure. I imagine it is going to get a lot of attention at the summit." Laguna paused to take a large drink of his coffee. "We'll be talking about the military as well; we're afraid that if they have too much power, they'll override the democratic process and instate their own leader instead."

"Fury's already played that game once. With Edea."

Laguna shook his head. "That was different, Squall. Besides, he's retired. I doubt he has much pull anymore."

The thought of Rinoa's father made him cringe. They'd never had a good relationship, even back when Squall was with Rinoa. After Ellie was born, the General had made a minimal effort, but he could never be sure if it was actually for the little girl's sake, or for the sake of putting on a good show. At least Laguna genuinely cared; it was more than he could ever say for Fury Caraway.

Squall looked back up into his father's eyes. He'd never felt this conflicted about the man back when he was a teenager. It had always been one-dimensional; he had resented Laguna Loire, the man who abandoned him, who had forced him to live out the life of an orphan, to grow up cold and alone and feeling unwanted. Fuck him for showing so much sincerity, for wanting to be a part of his and Ellie's lives, for caring about what happened to them and trying to help in any way he could.

"Are you alright?"

He should have been expecting such a question to come up eventually, but it caught him off-guard nonetheless. After a few moments of awkward silence, he stated lamely, "I'm fine."

"You seem a little out of sorts," Laguna pushed on. "Is there something you want to talk about?"

"Not particularly."

"...Is...everything _really_ okay?"

He was starting to think that maybe he should have taken up Laguna on his wine offering earlier. Maybe after a few glasses, he would've been numbed out enough and he wouldn't feel as troubled opening up a bit. Maybe he'd even feel better about it afterward. But he wasn't willing to bank on the "maybes".

"I need a smoke."

With that, he walked through the French doors and out onto the balcony. A cigarette found its way to his lips and was lit a few seconds later, but it offered little relief. He could sense his father's eyes on him through the window panes, and he almost felt his concern, his worry. He wished he could ignore it, pretend that everything was okay, pretend that in the four years since Rinoa left, he had become a better man, one who was sure of where he was going in life, one who wasn't conflicted by inner demons at every turn, one who had found happiness. But he knew that was a lie that was so thick and so deformed by contradictions that he could never get away with telling it.

He stared out onto the city; from this height, he could see the vast expanse of lights as they stretched across the landscape, a perfect grid of manufactured stars. The dissonant wind tangled his hair into careless knots and he wondered how much it would throw him around if he jumped. He fantasized about it, the howl as he cut through the air, falling thirty storeys through nothing, waiting for the sidewalk to bring everything to an abrupt end...

He finished his cigarette and tossed it over the edge before turning to go back inside, but stopped himself before he passed through the doors. Laguna had traded his coffee for the pricy Winhill wine, and had taken to drinking it like it was cheap beer. He noticed for the first time how tired his father looked, how deflated and defeated his posture was; it felt like he was staring into a mirror.

He stepped back into the warmth of the suite and took his seat on the sofa. Laguna glanced up at him before motioning to the bottle sitting on the baroque coffee table. Squall gave a hesitant nod and the man filled a fresh glass for him. It felt strange, sitting here with his father and not hearing a single word. He wasn't sure if he should have felt relieved or unnerved.

He swirled the pinot noir around in the glass before taking a slow sip. It had a light body, and he could taste the ghosts of currant and black cherry. He was by no means a connoisseur—there had been several occasions in the past where he'd found himself drinking box wine—but he was fairly certain that this was the best he'd ever had.

"You know, Squall," Laguna began, "if you really don't want to see me, then don't. I'd hate to think I was just another obligation to you."

"It's not that," he said, words slicing through the quiet. "It's been a long week. I don't know. I guess I'm just...messed up."

"Well, that's obvious," the older man joked, and let out a small chuckle. "But seriously, who isn't?"

"...I felt...sorry for you," Squall said, but it came out as a cynic's laugh, "for trying so hard to be my parent. I think that's why I came here, more than anything else."

Laguna offered Squall a thin smile. "Believe it or not, I actually give a shit about you."

"I know you do. It's kind of scary."

Laguna finished off his glass and immediately began to pour another. A fresh silence fell upon them, but it almost felt...natural this time. Squall found himself studying his father through sideways glances, noting the little details that made up the man, like how his hair was laced with more silver with each passing year, or how he'd sometimes frown in the same way that _he_ frowned, or how as transparent as Laguna Loire was, he was equally a mystery.

He wondered if he would have been more like his father if he had been raised by him. When he was a child, he had secretly longed for normalcy, for a regular school that didn't teach kids to be soldiers, for days spent fishing or playing catch, for kisses that would magically heal his scrapes, for dinner with a mom and a dad instead of a cold cafeteria full of orphans. Would Laguna have taught him how to ride a bicycle, or helped him with his homework, or encouraged him to cultivate a newly-discovered talent?

Would Laguna have shaped him into a better man than he was today?

"I'm going to leave SeeD," he blurted out then, as much to his own surprise as to his father's.

Laguna's eyes widened for the whisper of a moment, before his expression softened into a lopsided grin. "Good. Finally."

"...Finally?"

"The last thing I want for you is to be bogged down by a job you don't love," his father stated frankly. "Don't...don't be like me."

Squall cocked an eyebrow in the older man's direction as he finished his wine. Before he could set his glass down on the table, Laguna was already filling it back up. He did not complain, just brought it back up to his mouth and continued sipping on it a little faster than he should have. The situation he found himself in was strange at best. He had never drank with his father before, never wanted to, but right now, it seemed almost appropriate. He wondered if other people did this with their parents once they were old enough.

"Do you regret Esthar?" Squall asked, tentatively.

"...I regret a lot of things," came Laguna's answer. "I regret not raising you, not being there for Raine... I don't regret what we've done for Esthar, but...sometimes I wonder if it was worth the price. I forfeit my family for it, y'know? It was just one of those situations where everyone was like, 'it's either you or no one'."

Squall nodded. He knew the scenario all too well. He had never asked for the role of leader, never wanted to be put on the pedestal. But it always came down to that one fucking issue: if not him, then who? It wasn't that others weren't capable—Quistis might have even been _more _capable—but they were always more willing to defer to him than to lead on their own.

"Any post-SeeD plans?" Laguna asked.

Squall gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Not really."

"Do you have any hobbies? Something you're passionate about?"

"...No."

Laguna scratched the back of his head, another nervous habit that Squall realized he had inherited. "I'm sure there's something; you just haven't found it yet. I bet you have a creative side just dying to get out. Your mother and I were both artsy people, in our own ways."

Squall snorted. "I can't draw. Selphie witnessed my attempt. It was horrid."

"Maybe so, but I'm pretty sure that drawing isn't the be all end all of creative outlets." Laguna's eyes were burning with emerald fire. "I always found writing to be a great tool for expressing yourself. I bet you could do it well, too, if you actually put your mind to it."

"Now you're just pushing your passions onto me."

"Don't tell me that until you actually try it."

The only things Squall had ever written were mandatory essays and reports and e-mail auto-responders for Garden. It had always come naturally to him, he realized, but he had always been too pre-occupied by SeeD to pursue it any further than what was deemed necessary. He hadn't once considered writing for pleasure, much less a career. But the more he thought about it, the more his curiosity started to blossom. He tried not to let it show on his face. He didn't want to give his father that satisfaction.

"Just as long as you don't fall back in with that...other shit again, I'm happy," Laguna stated, his words holding an unspoken gravity.

Squall shook his head, trying to reassure him. "I've worked too hard to bring Ellie back into my life. I can't just throw it all away."

"Your sister was pretty worried about you for awhile, there, too."

"I know."

"You know we're always here for you if you need to talk, right?"

Squall narrowed his eyes. He didn't like where this was heading. Just when he thought maybe, just maybe he could feel comfortable in a conversation with his father, the rot started to take over. He didn't want to discuss this with the man. What did he know of his problems, his pains? Did Laguna Loire have even the slightest clue what it felt like, to have the most powerful bond known to man break right in front of him? Did he know what it felt like, to tumble down from grace and become synonymous with failure? And did he know what it felt like, to seek out chemicals because they were the only things keeping him from falling apart completely? Did he have any fucking clue at all?

"You...you haven't...done anything recently, have you?"

"Can we just not talk about it?" Squall's voice came out as an angered hiss, like a snake getting ready to send venom through the veins of an unsuspecting rabbit. He could not let the topic get any further. Talking led to wanting, and wanting led to doing. His heart rate had sped up again, and he downed the rest of his wine in one tasteless motion, trying desperately to slow himself back to a pace he could handle.

"Sorry." Laguna's muffled apology hung in the dense atmosphere, waiting for acknowledgement. When it went unanswered, he stumbled on. "I just...I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Nothing's going to happen to me. I'm fine. I've been fine for almost three years now. Quit talking about it."

"...You don't seem fine. I'm concerned about you."

"Oh, good, now you're concerned about me? You're about thirty years too late for that, _Dad_." Squall's words dripped with sarcasm, and he felt the hurt he'd buried years ago start to rise from its shallow grave.

"Please, Squall, do we have to go down this road again?" Laguna was pleading with him, now. "We were having a good visit. We don't have to talk about this if you're not ready."

"I'm never going to be ready. Why can't you get that?" His words came out as a whisper, barely audible.

"Squall, I—"

"—I should go." Squall stood quickly and made his way down the hall, toward the elevator. He threw his hood up over his head, willing it to shield him from his father's troubled gaze. His chest felt heavy with uncomfortable emotion, and he begged gods he didn't believe in to make it go away. He longed for the frost that had abandoned him to return, to tell him that he didn't need to feel if he didn't want to, to tell him that leaving was the right thing to do, to tell him that he didn't need anybody to worry about him, or care about him, or love him.

To tell him that he was better off alone.

To tell him a lie.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" Laguna asked behind him. "I would like a chance to see my granddaughter, at least."

_His_ granddaughter. The notion pained him. Reluctantly, Squall looked back over his shoulder, and gave a small nod. It felt like forfeiting, but he had promised himself to never let his feelings stop Ellie from having the relationship she deserved to have with her grandfather. His throat started to constrict, and he had to force his voice to form a response. "Yeah...," he choked, "tomorrow..."

With that, he stepped into the elevator, and hastily hit the lobby button. He started to descend, but the lift could not go fast enough. He felt himself suffocating on a strange mixture of opulence and sympathy; this place, this situation, it was making him claustrophobic. But despite all he felt, a part of him was mortified by his sudden exit, ashamed that he could not face up to his past with the one person who would forgive him for it.

The elevator doors chimed open after a slow, burning eternity, and he hurried through the lobby and out onto the street, not daring to look back. The cold air found him immediately, a wolf that had finally stalked down its prey, digging its claws into his skin, stinging his eyes and making his nose run. He ran across the street and slipped into his car, turned it on, cranked the heat. A laboured breath escaped his grasp as he pulled out another cigarette with trembling hands.

_You stupid fucking fuck. You stupid, ignorant, motherfucking fuck. _It wasn't meant for Laguna, but rather, himself. He gulped down a sob that he didn't know was coming. He was supposed to be beyond this, better than this. He was twenty-nine-years-old, but he still felt like a lost child. It made him sick to know that the wounds of his past could be opened so easily. He wondered when he had become so vulnerable, so hopelessly weak.

Maybe he had never been strong to begin with.


End file.
